Lapuser
Aluminum
- Joined
- May 17, 2012
- Location
- Lynnville,Tennessee
It seems like the what CAM program should I choose topic comes up all the time. Along with that though should also be what VAR should I choose too. In most cases you have to buy through a VAR and he will be your first line of paid for support and you WILL have to pay them bad or good every year you stay current. Here is the process I have determined will work after having wasted some of my own money to arrive to these conclusions. A long read but hey, these choices are ones that will make you or break you.
Dave’s Anti Bad VAR and Software Rules for CAM Purchasing
Here is what I recommend doing today. My primary source of information is other users I know and who are close by so I can verify their skill, parts cut and similarity of equipment used. For example the shop that convinced me to look seriously at HSM was a shop that is a pressure cooker deal near by. I could go in and watch and get honest feedback because these guys had to make it work to pay bills with. Online research was secondary in importance and VAR’s the very last source of information.
Online presence is interesting because right off the bat you can pretty well eliminate companies with closed forums. A forum closed to public reading is not there to protect its customers from spam. If none can post to the forum but active customers only, who cares who reads the posts? Well a company with something to hide does and as I have documented here before Geometric for example really does not want you prospective customers looking there. Any other company that does this also has something to hide and don’t ignore this huge red flag. The opposite end of the spectrum is Autodesk CAM forums which are open to all to read and to post in also after you register. Having followed their forum for a couple of years I can say that it has never gotten out of hand so therefore I can say that those who hide their forums do so for nefarious reasons. Kudos to Siemens also for opening up their forums for all to read.
So you decide you want the VAR in your shop anyway. Not all VAR’s are bad, just most of them in my personal experience. They will send out prices and slick demos and people who generally can’t think outside of their little canned demo box. Pretty well worthless in other words. This would be my list today for any VAR before they ever entertain any idea of showing up for demo day and what is expected of them on demo day.
1. You will load the program on my computer to work in my environment and not yours.
2. You will now be given simple to complicated parts to program with no preparation allowed. Refuse this and you get no further. You can fail this part to some degree if I determine the program will work in spite of your ignorance of it.
3. Anything relative to your special claimed advantages such as auto cam plan generation must be demonstrated on my part from the creation of, using for example CAMWorks for SE, a Tech Data Base with my tools and incorporating my strategies and proving these out on a couple of other similar parts with Feature Recognition. I am sure other CAM programs have similar things to prove so I am not singling out CW4SE in this instance. I am just using what is familiar. But whatever your special feature is you HAVE to do it from A to Z and prove it on my parts without rehearsals.
OK now that we have gotten this far show me how to cut specific areas in a certain direction or fashion. The local Featurecam VAR dude failed this some years back and we never went any further as a result. He did not know much about 3D tool paths and I had a reason for cutting that way.
4. Next we are going to cut parts with your post for my machine. You are also going to sign a commitment before cash changes hands that all posts needed for my operation will be provided and edited to my situation and satisfaction before I start paying for the program. I understand that complicated posts might run some $$ but that will be all spelled out with time frames for support and costs to finish these. Gibbs for instance is famous among users I know for slow walking their post promises. Geometric refused to honor a verbal promise made to me on a CW4SE turning post after I had paid for turning before I had bought a lathe. I did not get this in writing because I was stupid enough to think their words meant something.
I would except HSM from this and others may also have the integrity to make their free posts work just for you. HSM has proven themselves to my satisfaction in this area. My nearby friends shop has yet to get a good mill turn post from HSM. I think that is because the program is not strong in that area so his post suffers from a different problem. Namely that of lack of program capabilities. I know they have worked with him. They also have a dynamic Posts forum and you can get any answer you need there if it is possible to do. Remember my public forums comments above.
5. The guy you send out for this needs to be familiar enough with the program and common use CNC machinery to get us through any glitches that may come up.
6. If I find out beforehand your method of last resort is to bypass the shop floor and force your junk on me by selling to management dudes who don’t cut chips I will stop it if at all possible and 1 through 5 won’t matter at that time. If I can’t stop it I will make sure others online know exactly what you did and the sorry end result for my company. I will try to make darned sure you don’t get others as customers with the same deceptive practices. Today you can run but you can’t hide your crappy ethics from inquiring minds.
I find there are good VARs who do not mind showing you the right way and telling you the truth about what they sell. If it is not for you they will still sell to you but they won’t use deceptive practices to do so. They lay their cards on the table and let you decide. The majority of all VAR’s I have had to deal with though are pretty worthless. Two years after CW4SE was out the Siemens VAR resident support tech for CW4SE did not even have ST8 with CW4SE loaded and had no clue about my questions. One of the reasons I am no longer a customer of that VAR or Siemens.
7. If your VAR refuses to put you in actual touch with some of their current customers as referrals, or has to hunt for one that will give them a good referral (manifested by serious delays in providing or a refusal to provide any) the program may be good but the VAR probably is not. Beware of the program and or VAR in this case and investigate further before you choose. Users, if you are happy with your VAR and the program make a bit of time available for them with potential customers. Your primary purpose here is allegiance to users who need to know others can and do use the software and VAR in question and are satisfied. Save your fellow users from mistakes.
8. If there is not an active user community online for you to participate in it is a big sign of trouble. Market share does mean more work for those who use programs having it. Good online presence also means your chances of finding a local mentor or go to guy for after hours real world answers is much better.
9. If the software you are considering has geographical areas of protection for VAR’s and you have no choice on who you end up with this is another huge red flag. Years ago this is why Mastercam never had a chance with me besides their page page page and click click click GUI which I did not like. My choice was one VAR only from Georgia. The one recommended to me was Barefoot CNC the same distance away but no dice. So no sale either for Mastercam then or ever. I have heard too many bad stories about lousy Mastercam VAR’s you are stuck with because of where you live. Not saying the Georgia guys were bad but I am saying that I should have had a choice where MY money is spent. Check to see to if your potential VAR fails you in the future if you can switch to another. You don’t want to be stuck with people that show up to be paid once a year in a brand new Corvette and that is it.
Dave’s Anti Bad VAR and Software Rules for CAM Purchasing
Here is what I recommend doing today. My primary source of information is other users I know and who are close by so I can verify their skill, parts cut and similarity of equipment used. For example the shop that convinced me to look seriously at HSM was a shop that is a pressure cooker deal near by. I could go in and watch and get honest feedback because these guys had to make it work to pay bills with. Online research was secondary in importance and VAR’s the very last source of information.
Online presence is interesting because right off the bat you can pretty well eliminate companies with closed forums. A forum closed to public reading is not there to protect its customers from spam. If none can post to the forum but active customers only, who cares who reads the posts? Well a company with something to hide does and as I have documented here before Geometric for example really does not want you prospective customers looking there. Any other company that does this also has something to hide and don’t ignore this huge red flag. The opposite end of the spectrum is Autodesk CAM forums which are open to all to read and to post in also after you register. Having followed their forum for a couple of years I can say that it has never gotten out of hand so therefore I can say that those who hide their forums do so for nefarious reasons. Kudos to Siemens also for opening up their forums for all to read.
So you decide you want the VAR in your shop anyway. Not all VAR’s are bad, just most of them in my personal experience. They will send out prices and slick demos and people who generally can’t think outside of their little canned demo box. Pretty well worthless in other words. This would be my list today for any VAR before they ever entertain any idea of showing up for demo day and what is expected of them on demo day.
1. You will load the program on my computer to work in my environment and not yours.
2. You will now be given simple to complicated parts to program with no preparation allowed. Refuse this and you get no further. You can fail this part to some degree if I determine the program will work in spite of your ignorance of it.
3. Anything relative to your special claimed advantages such as auto cam plan generation must be demonstrated on my part from the creation of, using for example CAMWorks for SE, a Tech Data Base with my tools and incorporating my strategies and proving these out on a couple of other similar parts with Feature Recognition. I am sure other CAM programs have similar things to prove so I am not singling out CW4SE in this instance. I am just using what is familiar. But whatever your special feature is you HAVE to do it from A to Z and prove it on my parts without rehearsals.
OK now that we have gotten this far show me how to cut specific areas in a certain direction or fashion. The local Featurecam VAR dude failed this some years back and we never went any further as a result. He did not know much about 3D tool paths and I had a reason for cutting that way.
4. Next we are going to cut parts with your post for my machine. You are also going to sign a commitment before cash changes hands that all posts needed for my operation will be provided and edited to my situation and satisfaction before I start paying for the program. I understand that complicated posts might run some $$ but that will be all spelled out with time frames for support and costs to finish these. Gibbs for instance is famous among users I know for slow walking their post promises. Geometric refused to honor a verbal promise made to me on a CW4SE turning post after I had paid for turning before I had bought a lathe. I did not get this in writing because I was stupid enough to think their words meant something.
I would except HSM from this and others may also have the integrity to make their free posts work just for you. HSM has proven themselves to my satisfaction in this area. My nearby friends shop has yet to get a good mill turn post from HSM. I think that is because the program is not strong in that area so his post suffers from a different problem. Namely that of lack of program capabilities. I know they have worked with him. They also have a dynamic Posts forum and you can get any answer you need there if it is possible to do. Remember my public forums comments above.
5. The guy you send out for this needs to be familiar enough with the program and common use CNC machinery to get us through any glitches that may come up.
6. If I find out beforehand your method of last resort is to bypass the shop floor and force your junk on me by selling to management dudes who don’t cut chips I will stop it if at all possible and 1 through 5 won’t matter at that time. If I can’t stop it I will make sure others online know exactly what you did and the sorry end result for my company. I will try to make darned sure you don’t get others as customers with the same deceptive practices. Today you can run but you can’t hide your crappy ethics from inquiring minds.
I find there are good VARs who do not mind showing you the right way and telling you the truth about what they sell. If it is not for you they will still sell to you but they won’t use deceptive practices to do so. They lay their cards on the table and let you decide. The majority of all VAR’s I have had to deal with though are pretty worthless. Two years after CW4SE was out the Siemens VAR resident support tech for CW4SE did not even have ST8 with CW4SE loaded and had no clue about my questions. One of the reasons I am no longer a customer of that VAR or Siemens.
7. If your VAR refuses to put you in actual touch with some of their current customers as referrals, or has to hunt for one that will give them a good referral (manifested by serious delays in providing or a refusal to provide any) the program may be good but the VAR probably is not. Beware of the program and or VAR in this case and investigate further before you choose. Users, if you are happy with your VAR and the program make a bit of time available for them with potential customers. Your primary purpose here is allegiance to users who need to know others can and do use the software and VAR in question and are satisfied. Save your fellow users from mistakes.
8. If there is not an active user community online for you to participate in it is a big sign of trouble. Market share does mean more work for those who use programs having it. Good online presence also means your chances of finding a local mentor or go to guy for after hours real world answers is much better.
9. If the software you are considering has geographical areas of protection for VAR’s and you have no choice on who you end up with this is another huge red flag. Years ago this is why Mastercam never had a chance with me besides their page page page and click click click GUI which I did not like. My choice was one VAR only from Georgia. The one recommended to me was Barefoot CNC the same distance away but no dice. So no sale either for Mastercam then or ever. I have heard too many bad stories about lousy Mastercam VAR’s you are stuck with because of where you live. Not saying the Georgia guys were bad but I am saying that I should have had a choice where MY money is spent. Check to see to if your potential VAR fails you in the future if you can switch to another. You don’t want to be stuck with people that show up to be paid once a year in a brand new Corvette and that is it.
