mhajicek
Diamond
- Joined
- May 11, 2017
- Location
- Maple Grove, MN, USA
I've been using Mastercam since '95, and it's been pretty good to me. I'm still using version X9, because I detest how slow and cumbersome the new interface is in comparison. There are enough improvements by now however, that it would warrant biting the bullet and forcing myself to acclimate. But! I'm going off on my own and have a fledgling business going, and I need to buy my own seat for 3/4/5 axis milling. So I'm gong to have to pony up $20k+ for a new seat and learn a new interface whatever system I go with, which makes it the perfect time to reconsider which system I'm using.
I did some research and asking around, and liked what I heard about TopSolid. It's main weakness from what I've heard seems to be support and community, but I've never leaned heavily on support in the past. I know I wouldn't be able to hire a backup programmer who already knows it, but my wife is likely to be my first backup programmer (she's already been swapping parts and such), and we can get her trained on whichever system we want.
I had a demo, and really liked what I saw; it seems one can get most parts programmed much faster than with Mastercam. Since my main focus is rapid turn-around prototypes and short runs, this would be money in the bank. There also seems to be the level of control I'm used to for dialing things in if you want to take a little more time. It's also much more machine agnostic; it'll handle Swiss, millturn, whatever I might want to get into in the future; things that Mastercam struggles with.
So what am I missing? What's the catch?
Thanks
I did some research and asking around, and liked what I heard about TopSolid. It's main weakness from what I've heard seems to be support and community, but I've never leaned heavily on support in the past. I know I wouldn't be able to hire a backup programmer who already knows it, but my wife is likely to be my first backup programmer (she's already been swapping parts and such), and we can get her trained on whichever system we want.
I had a demo, and really liked what I saw; it seems one can get most parts programmed much faster than with Mastercam. Since my main focus is rapid turn-around prototypes and short runs, this would be money in the bank. There also seems to be the level of control I'm used to for dialing things in if you want to take a little more time. It's also much more machine agnostic; it'll handle Swiss, millturn, whatever I might want to get into in the future; things that Mastercam struggles with.
So what am I missing? What's the catch?
Thanks