CAD CAM and the real truth

Mekom · Oct 25, 2004

When you buy a CAD CAM and pay $15,000 USD for it as in the case of Mastercam do you realize that you apparently have actually only made a donation and it's the last you will see of that value. They appear to have a tactic where if you find that you do not have further use for the software or its capabilities turn out to be sub standard to what you had imagined that you are not allowed to sell the software. Their apparent scam is that you pay this $15,000 USD donation just to rent it. You do not have ability to recover your money by selling it.This is what I have been told.

moldmaker10 · Oct 26, 2004

Its not just mastercam. Most all software is this way. Its a rip off. How have we allowed this to happen. When you buy a machine it is yours to do with as you will such a resale. I also feel like you should be able to sell you license if you need to.

WILLEO6709 · Oct 26, 2004

You can resell the software, but the buyer needs the hardware key. Software Mainteneance fees are a ripoff in my opinion. I pay about $3k in software maintenance agreements annually between solidworks and gibbscam. Technically you get your money back in time savings, but its still hard to swallow for me.

SIM · Oct 26, 2004

As Doug said, you do have the option of not buying it.

Not sure what other options would be available. If they just let everyone share the programs then who would buy it, why would any spend the time to develop it, why would they upgrade it etc etc...

If it was easy and cheap everyone would have a copy. And those of us who go the extra little bit to get a leg up would be knocked down a peg.

Just a few thoughts on intellectual property.

******************************************

Okay on the other side I just paid my 3rd annual maintenance fee for Gibbs and I can't even get a secound hardware key for my laptop. You know how many times I have brought the laptop home and realized I forgot the damm key. I shouldn't say can't get one because ALL I would have to do is purchase a second seat at some ridiculous price. And if I should lose the key, same thing pusrchase a new seat. If I remember it was pretty much the purchase price.

mrainey · Oct 26, 2004

I live out in the country in a relatively poor southern county. Every good ole boy I run into seems to have a copy of AutoCAD at the house.

E-Stop · Oct 26, 2004

Most of the kids who take AutoCad at our local JVS have copies, as do most of their friends and families. I still use Autocad 2000 but have been offered an "upgrade" many a times by these young, snot-nosed kids.

As for selling your MasterCam, try posting it for sale on ebay. It will get pulled because of copyright infringments or something like that.

vinito · Oct 26, 2004

I have no idea whether this has a grain of truth or not, but I've heard that MasterCAM and Autodesk aggressively pursue pirates of their wares just a notch below the way BMI goes after P2P users for music copying.
If this is true, it might partly explain why the software is so expensive. As with health care (and everything else I guess) they would have to pay for the legal department somehow.
IMO MasterCAM's UI is kind of chunky and not intuitive at all, but it's still the most popular so why change (your opinion may differ).
So to learn whether you want it or not you need access to the software, but even large companies have a hard time justifying the high expense and you can't buy a used copy. Catch 22.

Takes a lot of money to run with the big boys. Part and parcel of being in a "cottage industry" I guess. If we just needed a word processor, there would be a bunch of competition to drive the cost down.

Chevy427z · Oct 26, 2004

Very curious to hear what the selling price was and how they got away with it. I've heard, too, about the aggresive pursuit of pirates, and rewards for snitches, to boot. I do understand about intellectual property, but in my opinion, they've priced themselves out of a market (us poor slobs)

I guess it's all about supply and demand.

Mark

metlmunchr · Oct 27, 2004

There are several federal court rulings regarding software and whether or not you can sell a program you legally purchased and own. They say regardless of what may be written in the EULA, if there is no finite time after which the software must be returned to the vendor, as would be the case with a true lease, the transaction is ruled a sale and the purchaser does have the right to sell or dispose of it as he wishes. Obviously this has nothing to do with copied or cracked software, but does give you rights regarding software that lots of authors would rather you didn't have.

wrench · Oct 27, 2004

I wonder if the dongle is treated differently than the software... Maybe you can't 'sell' that? This, by the way, is why I like my archaic old Hurco... No CAM needed to generate toolpaths! Sure, it might be anceint, but for the home it is a pretty nice machine. And I can even use demoware for the CAD side of things. Heck, nowadays companies are so caught up in the 3D stuff that they throw the 2D stuff off in demo stuff that sometimes doesn't expire. That is fine with me!

--Alan

mrainey · Oct 27, 2004

I've been programming almost full-time, in a lot of different shops, for twenty four years - I'd say that 3D has come into play maybe one percent of the time.

metlmunchr · Oct 27, 2004

I've been programming almost full-time, in a lot of different shops, for twenty four years - I'd say that 3D has come into play maybe one percent of the time.

Thanks for backing up what I've believed for a long time. As soon as one moves away from mold work and certain other specialized and prototype parts, the need for true 3D programming is almost non existant. There's one simple reason for this. The result would be parts that no one could afford.

Don UK · Oct 27, 2004

For the home user, in no way can the the cost of professional software be justified or contemplated, so the vendor is not losing out by use of a pirate copy that would never be purchased.
The vendor may then benefit from sales due to recommendations to professional users.
Don

WILLEO6709 · Oct 27, 2004

certain production require programming from splines, etc. which are a real PITA to do by hand. The fastest( cheapest) toolpath is a simple single cut with a form tool instead of contouring with a ball mill, etc. I use 3d a lot, but I do odd work, some production, some prototype, some molds, some of a lot of things really. 3d plays into about 40% of my current shop mix. The one thing about 3d is you gotta pay to play. you can get a 2d cam system for about $6k-ish that will do 85% of what most people do.

Chevy427z · Oct 27, 2004

Doug,

Thanks for the feedback. Interesting "funny business". Sounds like your buddy got a deal! Tell him good luck with it. I used versions 4 through 8 in my glory days at IBM. We used it for lathe, mill, and wire. I miss it.

Mark

Fractal · Oct 27, 2004

I just bought OneCNC which I consider to be a great value for the money. SolidCam, EdgeCAM and MasterCAM were other things I looked at and it actually pissed me off to talk to their sales people. One second EdgeCAM was $11K then it was $6500. It was such a flim-flam and I could never squeak out of him or the others just what I get for the money. It's not until you keep pulling threads that you find out that you will be spending a fortune to actually be able to do anything beyond 2D...and the controller on the machine already does that!

On the bright side, I feel I paid a reasonable price for great functionality. It has allowed me to do my patterns and molds and some other geometries that would be a real pain otherwise. If you are a home shop kind of guy, stepping up to a CNC machine might be a bit much, never mind some of the ludicrously expensive CAM software. In my case, fixtures to do my work manually would have cost more so it was a no-brainer.

Joe

mrainey · Oct 27, 2004

Talk about cheap CAM. In the early nineties I used a DOS program called Personal APT. It was a substantial subset of the larger APT language, and more than adequate for almost anything I ever ran into. Had some simple post processor capabilities, which could be supplemented with macros to get good output. It had on-screen plotting that looked very good for that era.

No interactive graphics, and you had to learn a simple programming language, but the whole package sold for two or three hundred dollars, along with free unlimited support from the developer (Bob Drewry - don't know what happened to him). As with any good programming language, you were mostly limited by your imagination.

SIM · Oct 27, 2004

My thoughts on cheap CAM is you get what you pay for. Cheap will get you either less power or a steeper learning curve. Yes it will do what you need it to do in most cases, but for a guy like me I just want to get in...do what I need to do and get out.

Example, I bought some cheap program to engrave art clips. Does it work, yes but you need to load the clips from one program to the next and generate new formats, then load to a different program then generate the code. Then when you output the program it takes forever to run.Then your supposed to look at it and decide if its correct and adjust accordingly. Does it work, yes... I guess... eventually with many tweeks here and there.

Mekom · Oct 27, 2004

I agree it used to be ability based on cost but those days are long gone. When we found that Mastercam introduced the huge maintenance cost for no value because in their eyes you don't own it anyway we moved away from that and purchased Onecnc. Onecnc is a far better product new guys coming to our shop pick it up immediately because it is so modern and intuitive. The main difference in price is I believe comes from buying direct from the company instead of paying a var a huge cut. No maintenance costs you do actually own it and can sell it all the ability you need for all the 3D solids surfaces and imports that you need. We find their support very good they have a good support forum to boot so the statements you get what you pay for is long gone. Its more like look around and see for yourself.

pete913 · Oct 29, 2004

To each his own, but we have GibbsCam where I work, and right after we bought it, I got a call from a Mastercam salesman telling me I was gonna be dissappointed with it, their software had more features, blah blah blah. OK so our basic lathe and mill package in Gibbs cost US about 10k, plus the yearly maintenance fee. So I don't actually own it, big deal. That system has made us more money than some el cheapo hobbyist package could ever think of doing whether I own it or not. Plus, if I get stuck on a problem, I pick up a phone, dial an 800 number, and have a real live software engineer to speak with,I don't have to go hunting for answers on some online forum. I can go to yearly seminars for the price of a plane ticket, and actually talk to Bill Gibbs, the owner of the company, as I did last winter. I saw demonstrations of its 5 axis 3d machining capabilities, and anyone would be hard pressed to show me where their software is any better. I know in these forums, it's hard to differentiate when people talk about this stuff. You usually don't know if they're talking about a hobby type application or whether its for commercial use. However, to my mind, anyone thinking they're gonna use autocad and some el cheapo CAM system to do commercial work, and make money at it, needs a new dream.

CAD CAM and the real truth

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