HELP!!!! i have to justfy Master Cam

[buck30]

Long story but some salsman from a competitor got a corporate pukes ear and wonts us to change to his product. Us users have to justify Master Cam. i am totaly selfish and don't wont to relearn wot i already know in another product. So from you mush more experienced users there give me some ideas i can use to justfy keeping master cam

TIA

[Thad]

Which competitor?

 

Thad

[iowajim62]

Get all the programmers together and talk about it. Then find the toughest part you guys have programmed. Now take the print and/or model of that part and ask the salesman to program that part as an example of how easy their software is to use. Make sure the bosses are on hand for this demonstration. This usually kills most of these salesman pitch techniques. See how long it takes. Now ask the boss about spending the money on 5 new seats of software versus spending that money as a downpayment on a new machine.

 

[ 02-09-2009, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: iowajim62 ]

[buck30]

Esprit is the competitor. for wierd reasons we use them for out 4 axis wire EDM but now somhow word had gotten out and romour has it that "Surf Cam" is also knocking at the door.

[BernieT]

MC vs Esprit

[cobra95kev]

I like Jim's idea all around. Give them a real good one.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Yeah, if you don't have a good part to make salesboi pee his pantss, I do and I can part with it too.

 

Bring it onnnn sucka!!! (in my best Mr. T voice)

[chopsley]

In a galaxy far far away , I worked for a company that used Applicon Bravo. Bravo was the pc based Compact II from the days of yester year. Compact II was state of the art before personal computers came along. It actually was pretty darn good at driving tools. It handled some things back in the early 80's better than Mastercam. For instance you could pick a #5 centerdrill and tell it what diameter chamfer you wanted and it figured out the Z depth for you. Damn good lathe roughing routines as well. I digress. Anyhow Unigraphics bought out that software and snuffed it. No more upgrades, no more support. We had to get another CAM system. We looked at Edgecam, Esprit and Mastercam. My boss and I visited a place in this area that makes dental equipment. They were using Esprit for production but the guy in the mold shop was Mastercam all the way. (Never did get to talk to him). The Esprit looked impressive. I asked one of the programmers if he was happy with the support he got from them.He then locked eyeballs with his boss and admitted that they did have a few glitches with support. He said one upgrade wiped out a bunch of sorce files but that the support folks were pretty helpfull "once you got to know them". That was enough for me to recommend Mastercam.

 

Just this evening I had a problem with Mastercam X3-mu1. I was drafting out a new file and I could not get it to make a line between two intersecting lines no matter what I tried. Finally I shut it down and started up again. Like majic I could now construct this simple line. This is not the first time something like this has happened to me. I learned on version 9.1 and sometimes I miss it. I like the new high speed core milling etc. when everything works like it should. I honestly just wish they could kill some of the bugs. I agree with others about the drilling on different z's. Old Compact II had that working better than Mastercam X3.

 

Unless Esprit has gotten a WHOLE lot better, I'd still go with Mastercam.

 

[TK-32™]

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[chopsley]

...?

[iowajim62]

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When he doesn't have anything to add to the conversation that is his way of upping his post count and making himself feel better.

[Guest]

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morse code

[Tony35]

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umm ya... go with that software ya ya go with that

[Jack Neelands™]

There is also the learning curve that everybody will have to go through as well....So if your production is running at its peak now and you need to slow it down for a bit I guess you can afford to replace all the seats and start all over again.

 

Just my 2 cents

[RaiderX]

not sure if it matters what your using to program with if it is working (gettin the job done) changing systems is a pita. better be a very good reason or it will take all your profits out rather quickly during learning curve and transition.

now is not the time to do that imho.

[mike_f]

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Bravo was the pc based Compact II from the days of yester year. Compact II was state of the art before personal computers came along.

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I thought I was the only one old enough around here to remember compact II....only I was using it in the 70's....yeah those were the days...now where did I leave my teeth ?????..

 

never mind me...just adding to post count...

[chipmagnet]

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compact II

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I had one company that wanted to hire but they could NOT understand why I didn't want to go backwards in learning technology.

 

In reference to the topic, make sure that the support you get is factored into your calculus of justifying the cost. If you can not get support for your software, then when you have problems and eventually you will, what is the cost involved in the downtime?

[Zoober]

Chops, if you are ever jonesing for Bravo, come visit us...

We have a couple of seats still running so we can convert the old Bravo dwg files to dxf so we can bring into MC.

Only problems we have with it is licensing is a PITA..

We also have Esprit. It is pretty good for wire, but we really don't use it anymore. Esprit sucks wif the libraries and DBs.

[chopsley]

Robert, I'm not exactly jonesing for Bravo but I was good using it. I'll have to get down for a visit soon. I'd like to meet you and see the shop.

 

 

Oh, and Mike_f, I don't expect any of us are getting any younger. I started out with pencil cam and flexowriter. Remember them?

[Zoober]

Your welcome anytime.

Just give me a shout. Email addy in the profile.