23 May 2014
Chris Ciszek founded EXCEL MACHINING INC in Chicago with his brother in 1997 where they rented a place and they started with one machine. Then in 2005 they bought the building where they are today located at 5654 W. 65th St. in Chicago. Currently they own 7 machines and have 7 employees working in their machining job shop. These days they mainly manufacture equipment for bridges and printing machine pieces for mountain ink assemblies for the US and for Russia. They also machine forging and casting components for national rail, as well as for fixtures and holders. The company is also open to machining other types of parts.
The switch to TopSolid 10 years ago
Chris and his company started using TopSolid ten years ago and now they have been using TopSolid 7 for 3 years. Chris was initially an EdgeCam user but made the switch to TopSolid after he saw a demo on the IMTS tradeshow in Chicago. He really appreciates the 3D functions and finds the software easy to learn and to operate. Moreover the interface is easy to understand and as he says, he needs to be flexible to revise designs for machining.
Today EXCEL MACHINING INC uses TopSolid 30% for Design and 70% for Cam. Chris receives customer files that he needs to translate in TopSolid and then make subtle changes to the geometry in order to finally transfer his design files to machining. He then creates tool path strategies so that his machine operators can cut the part efficiently.
TopSolid’s strong points
The TopSolid post processors specifically made for each of Chris’s machines allow him to cut his parts with exact precision and efficiency. Here are just some of the main strong points TopSolid offers Chris and his company:
Technical support is the number one priority for Chris and he really appreciates Missler Software Inc.’s availability and technical help. Chris values the great forward vision that TopSolid gives him. Another benefit he enjoys is when the revisions need to be made in design, the TopSolid integrated CAD/CAM platform allows him to have little or no downtime. And when he needs G-code output for a left-hand right part, mirror image functionality inside TopSolid makes this process intuitive and easy. “Keep it simple and make it work!” as he sums up.
Now Chris wants to expand. His plan is to buy a new building first and then invest in a horizontal boring mill. As Excel Machining continues to grow into more machining methods, TopSolid will continue to be a strong partner.
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