A versatile and affordable machining calculator with built-in time
estimating and job planning
Time and cost estimating made easy!
Start-up screen:
The Machining Calculator and Job Planner
of ME Consultant Pro
The ultimate planning tool for CNC machining centers
- A must-have for anyone serious about manufacturing!
MEPro is the most used tool on my desktop, I use it from
programming to estimating. It's a lot of info packed into a small package.
Rick Galindo of S&N Machine and Fabricating, Inc.
Any manufacturing person can
benefit from ME Consultant Pro:
CNC setup people, operators, and machinists...
* Use ME Consultant Pro to calculate cutting conditions needed for your
machining operations.
* Use the helpful planning wizards and charts to get critical machining
data - like drill sizes, tap drill sizes, thread data, and much more!
CNC programmers...
* Use ME Consultant Pro to help plan your process and determine the cutting
conditions needed in your programs.
* Use the helpful planning wizards to help determine drill depth, tap drill
diameter, counter bore size, and much more!
* Use the comprehensive thread wizard helps you determine just about any
size specification for any thread (like the small diameter of an external NPT
tapered thread or large diameter of an internal NPT tapered thread).
Inspectors...
* Use ME Consultant Pro to troubleshoot cutting condition and process
problems.
* Use the helpful wizards to come up with size attributes for machined
surfaces (like cap screws and threads).
Job planners, cost estimators, and quoting people...
* Use ME Consultant Pro to estimate the time and cost to run a job on a CNC
machining center.
* Use the material wizard to calculate raw material costs.
Managers...
* Use ME Consultant Pro to confirm that the cutting conditions used for
quoting are truly being used once you get the job.
* Ensure that everyone in the company is using the same cutting
conditions.
Design engineers...
* Use ME Consultant Pro to familiarize yourself with the machining
operations that must be performed on products you design.
* Use the planning wizards to help determine sizes for certain machining
operations - like holes sizes for cap screws.
* Once a cost estimate is created with Job Planner, you can easily
manipulate machining criteria to compare manufacturing costs - for example,
simply change the material and ME Consultant Pro will update all time and cost
related data.
Application engineers...
* Use ME Consultant Pro to provide time estimates to customers evaluating
your CNC machine tools.
* Ensure that your proposed cutting conditions do not exceed your machine's
maximum horsepower.
* Create custom report formats that include your company's logo and contact
information using Microsoft Excel.
Industrial education instructors...
* Use ME Consultant Pro to help students understand how cutting conditions
affect machining operations.
Just about anyone in manufacturing...
* ME Consultant Pro is an essential planning tool for anyone working in a
manufacturing company.
ME Consultant Pro: Covers the spectrum for your planning needs!
If you just need a quick speed and feed for a tool, fire up the
Machining Calculator. First select the material and cutting tool. Then provide
some easy information about the tool (like its diameter). The Machining
Calculator will instantly respond with your needed speed and feed.
If you want to know how long a machining operation will take, enter
just a bit more information (like the hole depth and the number of holes). Time
for each hole/pass as well as the total time for the operation will be shown.
If you need to plan an entire job, you'll use the Job Planner.
Simply string together the machining operations from the Machining Calculator
into a process in Job Planner (this is done with but one click per
operation). Time for each operation as well as the total time required for the
job will be tracked and displayed.
When you're finished, you can easily print a report for your
estimate:
Printed job planning form from ME Consultant Pro
How it works - and why it's so easy!
Our goal is to get you answers to your planning and machining questions as
quickly and accurately as possible -- with a minimum amount of input from you.
Toward this end, ME Consultant Pro is integrated software. It draws its
information from four sources:
The two main modules for ME Consultant Pro are Machining Calculator
and Job Planner. When you first start-up ME Consultant Pro, you'll be
shown Machining Calculator. If you only want information for an operation or
two, you'll only need Machining Calculator. If you want information for an
entire job, you'll also use Job Planner.
Machining Calculator: Instant answers to you machining questions
Machining Calculator of ME Consultant Pro
Again, Machining Calculator provides instant answers to your
machining questions. Based upon your selection of machine, material, and
cutting tool, you'll be able to instantly view data coming from the
configuration file, the selected material file, and the selected machine data.
With a milling operation, your inputs for tool diameter, cut width, cut depth,
pass length, and number of passes will cause Machining Calculator to instantly
respond with speed in rpm, feedrate in ipm, time for each pass, total time, and
horsepower required for the operation. Just what you need to know in order to
plan for and program the operation!
Putting it all together with Job Planner
By itself, Machining Calculator is an extremely powerful planning tool.
However, it displays but one machining operation at a time. With Job Planner
(activated from Machining Calculator), you'll go through your process
operation-by-operation. When you're finished entering an operation in Machining
Calculator, you'll simply add it to Job Planner (with one click of the mouse).
Job Planner will keep a running total for all operations. Job Planner also
considers tool changing time, setup time, and material cost to provide a
comprehensive time and cost study.
Job Planner also includes several powerful editing tools. With a completed
job estimate, for example, you can easily play what-if. Select and
operation and you can easily determine what will happen to cycle time when you
modify any cutting conditions data.
The editing features of Job Planner also make it very easy to create
estimates for similar workpieces: create an estimate for the first workpiece
and save it. Then recall it, modify just those operations that change for the
similar workpiece and save it again with a new name. It's that simple!
Job Planner files are saved in .csv (comma separated values) format, meaning
they can be imported directly into Microsoft Excel. This will allow you to
create your own report format, which might be especially important to
applications engineers using ME Consultant Pro to create time estimates (you
can include your company's logo and contact information on the time estimate
report).
Planning wizards in the Machining Calculator
Most entries in the Machining Calculator are quite simple and obvious.
However, there may be times when you'll need some help. We've provided several
planning wizards to help you come up with entry data. In these descriptions, we
do little more than present the highlights. If you want more complete
information, be sure to download the
demo and read the User Guide.
* Your print specifies that a hole must go through a 1.0 inch thick plate.
With the Drill Depths planning wizard, you can quickly determine the full depth
including drill point.
* For centerdrills, countersinks, and spot drills, you can quickly
determine the depth to send the tool based on a chamfer size you want to place
around a hole. The Drill Depth wizard makes it easy!
* Here's a unique feature of the Drill Depths planning wizard: You've
probably been told that the drill point length for a 118 degree twist drill can
be calculated by multiplying 0.3 times the drills diameter. But this standard
formula assumes that the surfaces of the 118 degree included angle come to a
sharp point - which they do not. The Drill Depth wizard considers the
width of the drill's web when determining the drill point length, which is more
accurate. While this might not be extremely critical for drills, it is very
important for other drilling tools, like spot drills. You want a spot drill to
machine a chamfer to a specific diameter. The depth you program is quite
critical. If you use the "rule-of-thumb" and program a depth of half
the chamfer diameter (for a 90 degree spot drill), you'll be sending the spot
drill too deep and machine the chamfer oversize! Again, the Drill Depth wizard
will determine the correct depth, considering the web at the spot drill's
point.
* For standard socket head cap screws, this chart provides you with
critical design and machining information, including head size with recommended
counter bore diameter and major thread diameter with recommended clearance drill
size.
* With this very helpful wizard, you enter the raw material type and its
size. The wizard then calculates the total weight needed for the job. Based
upon an entry of cost per pound, it will show the total cost for raw material!
* This powerful wizard provides you with all conceivable information for
just about any standard thread. For example, if you need a tap drill size,
simply select the thread to be machined. You'll be shown tap drill choices
based upon the percentage of thread engagement you require.
* Once you've selected a thread, you can
print a report that
puts it all in writing.
Inch/Metric entry and output
* While this is not a wizard or chart, ME Consultant Pro has been designed
from the ground up to allow you to work in either measurement system mode.
Download a fully-functional demo of ME Consultant Pro (Vista compatible)
We hope we've whetted your appetite and that you want to know more. With this
fully functional
demo of ME Consultant Pro, you'll be
able to work with ME Consultant Pro for ten days. You'll also have full access
to the User Guide (instructions) which provides detailed descriptions of all
entry/answer fields. Combined with the PowerPoint
presentation that shows the use of ME Consultant Pro (below), we're hoping you
have enough information to make a wise buying decision. But if you still have
questions, please call call us (847-639-8847) or
email usbefore you buy.
We cannot provide a refund for this product.
Still want to know more? You can download a presentation that describes the
use of ME Consultant Pro in detail. To view the slide show, you need to have
Microsoft's PowerPoint Viewer installed on your computer.
If you've been planning jobs manually with calculator, paper, and pencil,
you'll find ME Consultant Pro to be a wonderful improvement. Worse, if you've
been using a seat-of-your-pants (guessing) method of determining time and cost
for your jobs, you'll find that ME Consultant Pro will bring a consistent,
reviewable method of cost estimating to your company. It's price can be easily
recovered with the first few estimates you do! Order ME Consultant Pro
today!
ME Consultant Pro should run properly on any Windows 32 bit system. But if
you're worried at all about compatibility issues, be sure to download and run
the demo. If the demo runs on your computer, so will the licensed version.
You have two delivery options to acquire the fully licensed version of ME
Consultant Pro.
Delivery by download - Once your order is processed, we'll email you
a link to an FTP site where you can download ME Consultant Pro (be sure to
provide us with a working email address). Notification emails are sent during
regular business hours only (not holidays, weekends, or evenings). Even so,
this delivery method will save you time and money.
Delivery on CD-rom (shipped to you) - While more expensive, we can deliver ME Consultant
Pro to you on a CD-rom disk. Again, there is an extra charge for the CD-rom and
for shipping.
Version Options
ME Consultant Pro is available with an installer (.exe) or in zipped format.
The installer version installs ME Consultant Pro on your computer and places
icons on your desktop for activation. The zipped version can be extracted
into any directory (folder) and will run without installation. The zipped
version is portable and runs perfectly from a USB thumb drive.
Which one should I buy?
If you will be using ME Consultant Pro on one computer, especially a
desktop, you should buy the installer version.
If you want to place ME Consultant Pro on a portable memory device (like a
USB flash drive) and move it from computer to computer - as is commonly the case
when you want to use ME Consultant Pro at work or at home - you should buy the
zipped version.
Pricing:
Zipped version (runs from a portable
memory device):
Delivery by download:** Again, download orders are only
processed during regular business hours (not holidays, weekends, or evenings).
SW-MEPZD ~ ME Consultant Pro Single License (zipped)~ $150.00 ~
[ ADD TO CART ]
Delivery by CD-rom (shipped to you):
SW-MEPZC ~ ME Consultant Pro Single License (zipped) ~ $175.00~
[ ADD TO CART ]
Installer version (is installed on
your system's hard drive):
Delivery by download:** Again, download orders are only
processed during regular business hours (not holidays, weekends, or evenings).
SW-MEPID ~ ME Consultant Pro Single License (installer)~ $150.00 ~
[ ADD TO CART ]
Delivery by CD-rom (shipped to you):
SW-MEPIC ~ ME Consultant Pro Single License (installer) ~ $175.00~
[ ADD TO CART ]
Additional licenses
Need more than one license? We offer a substantial discount for each
additional license for ME Consultant Pro that you purchase. You must, of
course, purchase the first license at full price in order to qualify for the discounted
price. In the "comments" at the end of your order, please specify which
version (installer or zipped) you want.
