Is it time to destroy MU1 and upgrade to MU2

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Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis,

Alea jacta est,

Qui tacet consentit.

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"All things are changing, and we are changing with them, the die is cast, who keeps silence consents"

 

I hear you ...

[Müřlıń®]

[Code_Breaker]

You're welcome ...

 

110 voters

 

30% want to leave MU1 as it is ... no changes

 

70% want upgrade ... too many problems

 

BUT WILL ANYTHING BE DONE ... I THINK NOT ... Just let the peons suffer ...

[Slick]

It's kind of a loaded question though, "Who wants something better?" Hmmmm, lemme see.

[neurosis]

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It's kind of a loaded question though, "Who wants something better?" Hmmmm, lemme see.

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Maybe the question should have been "Who wants something that works as it should"

 

Think that the vote would change?

[Bob W.]

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BUT WILL ANYTHING BE DONE ... I THINK NOT ... Just let the peons suffer ...

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You know what is funny... Solidworks was created by developers that left Pro Engineer because ProE had such lousy customer service that the door was open for a new comapny to step in. ProE didn't do jack **** about it until Solidworks was sitting on their neck and they had taken 50% of ProE's market. I am a ProE user and their customer service is still terrible but my customers use it so I am stuck.

 

It will be interesting to see how much market share some of these go-getter companies can eat away over the next five years. I would hate to shell out more $$$ for another CAM package and I really do hope that Mastercam works to improve their customer service. In fact... that would be an interesting poll. How many people feel that Mastercam gives a **** about their existing customers.

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How many people feel that Mastercam gives a **** about their existing customers.

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Bullet Bob fires again ... hitting the bulls eye ....

[Thee Rickster ™]

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I think there are enough issues that a service

pack, free to all MU1 users, regardless of sim date, is in order..

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"Who wants something better?"

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How bout somtehing that WORKS and doesn't cost

ME and my company time and money.

 

I can't stop at a stable version yet, because of bugs.

But the moment I can I will, my Boss is banking on it. i have too many files in X3 and X4 to go back to X2.

[Dave.L]

In the one year I have been on this forum the only poll I've seen from CNC software was related to sending us mouse pads or not.

 

Sorry, but that kind of sums up what they view as important.

 

Before I invest much more in this I plan to review some other software. I have my own issues that but reading all the other issues is making me very nervous, especially lathe / mill turn.

[htm01]

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only poll I've seen from CNC software was related to sending us mouse pads or not.

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hey! i've got at least 6 of them!

[Code_Breaker]

The mouse pad that came with X4 was 4" square, smaller than the What's New Book ...

 

[Code_Breaker]

After one week ... it is still 2/3 of mastercammers wants to upgrade MU1 ...

 

[Code_Breaker]

score card is:

 

93 users want a change (71%)

38 users are happy campers (29%)

 

Here are some recent comments from other posts on this forum:

 

 

Murraymold (11/10/09 05:37 am)

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Just between Me, Rickster & peon MC has cost a lot of down time. No telling how many customers are having this issue that WE don't know about.

 

It's taking a toll on my mental state

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Rickster (11/10/09 06:12 am)

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Time to get in to the architecture and bring it up to date or find a way to make it work for

everyone. OR how about a refund if it I have to stop using X4 because of this and go back to X3?

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Anubis 11/10/09 06:11 am)

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However, there is the usual plethora of bugs (new and old) to work around. That's cool though. It would "feel" very very wrong if Mastercam didn't trip you up numerous times during the first month or two after a new release or update.

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Reko (11/8/09 07:01 pm)

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I hope this is a problem that gets worked out because I just talked my new employer into getting X4 with the maintenance agreement. I seriously doubt he would invest in a second system.

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Peon (11/8/07 07:57 pm)

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Reko, I'm in the same situation. I just started at this facility this past March and talked them into Mastercam. My initial plans were to add several, level 1 seats to the floor so the men on the floor can program their 2d geometry and drilling rather than manually typing the code into their machines from a print. I wanna go paperless like I had at my previous employer. Well guess what? I can't honestly make that suggestion anymore with the crap I've been dealt with since the release of X4. Especially since we have available seats of Pro/e Manufacture. (very cumbersome in my opinion). It would be hard enough to train a few men on a new CAM system with STABLE CAM software, but just imagine if I had to train the men now and still try to keep up with my own job responsibilities when the software crashes on a consistent basis. I'm just asking for a stable software package. This now becomes a career decision with my current employer if I recommend Mastercam to the shop floor. Please fix the crap!

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Please fix the crap!

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Please fix the crap!

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Please fix the crap!

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Can't be said enough ...

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Please fix the crap!

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[Code_Breaker]

It looks like the hand writing is on the wall for Mastercam at our establishment ... the boss is looking into using a different software ... too much down time ...

[Colin Gilchrist]

Hang on just a little longer, a fix is in the works...

[Don S at Barefoot CNC South]

I did not want to say this but here goes

MU1 was a big reason for my situation now, un caught errors in the program multi axis, due to my trust in the upgrade cost me dearly ya think?

 

No new release will fix what happened here.

So instead of looking for work arounds just looking for work now! We all have become beta testers and at whos expense? didn't vote you know my vote.

[Verndog]

I've been using Mastercam since 1986, and am seeing a sharp increase in area shops going away from Mastercam....there is a reason for it. I've used other systems over the years and always come back to Mastercam one way or another. Mastercam needs to cut the fluff and get their software WORKING reliably. Since Version X the users have become the guini pigs and the literally millions of man hour $$$ are on their shoulders for buggy releases.

 

X4 is a major disappointment and offers me little to nothing over X3. CNC Dont bother releasing a new version MU2 until you get all the toolpath parameter pages the same for all toolpaths 2-D, 3-D, and 5ax. Hunting for coolant or stock to leave ect. on various different menues depending on the toolpath your in is a joke. Freezes opening parameter and operation manager from machine to machine are a joke. Lost files from toolpath crashes on 3-D toolpath regens are shameful and costly to the customer in tough times...especially on a maintanence release it's STILL THERE!

 

Not feeling the love with X4.

[gcode]

I know some guys are having trouble.. but I'm not..

4 seats running here at work and 1 at home ..

a couple of crashes a month is about it..

Around here X4 MU1 is the most stable version yet.

I did gag my computer on a 60 meg stl file this afternoon though

No lag at all on my XP machines.. maybe a second

on my Win7 at home.. think it might be my AV

software.. ??

I didn't like the new tree format at first..

but I'm used to it now and find it way more productive.

I'm am looking forward to all the old legacy surface toolpaths moving to it.

A couple of weeks ago I had to do some work on our old V9/Verisurf box... and I wouldn't go back to V9 full time for a 25% raise. It felt like

someone had broken 1 hand and poked out one eye.

 

They do need to figure out why some guys crash

and burn a dozen times a day though.

 

my 2 cents...which is about what its worth

[Colin Gilchrist]

Gcode,

 

I agree with you. I feel really bad for the guys like Peon, Rickster, Murraymold, and countless others who are having bad problems. Thing is, we aren't seeing these issues, which makes it impossible for us to help CNC Software catch the problems during the Beta cycle. I'm not trying to make excuses, there are some problems CNC Software needs to fix right now. They are working on it though. Still, it doesn't help those people who's jobs are on the line.

[peon]

I push this software very hard with very large files and 95% surfacing toolpaths. I'm referencing rest rough toolpaths from .stl files generated by MCAM to achieve the most efficient toolpaths possible. The only advantage to toolpathing with X4 was the faster crunch speed. I can't get through a single day without multiple crashes, although, the temp file error has been reduced dramatically after defragging the hard drive, but still has not totally disappeared. I haven't had any problems with the 2d paths. Yes, I realize that every CAM package will have some bugs, but I have been exposed to Powermill, UGNX and Pro/e with previous employers, and I can honestly say that Powermill and NX didn't have NEARLY the amount of bugs and headaches that I have been experiencing with X4. NX and Powermill were also more efficient with much less air cutting. Please note, I am not an expert user of the mentioned packages and I have little experience with Pro/e (very cumbersome in my opinion). My employer already owns a few seats of Pro/e Manufacture, and if they continue to improve their product, I may make the switch. If CNC can make their product stable, I will certainly stay with them. It seems some users have very few problems, on the other hand, I and many others, are crashing often on fairly new and powerful workstations. Perhaps X4 may be very fussy with certain workstation configurations and CNC have not yet discovered a "one size fits all" approach. A few generous forum members mentioned the problems with .stl files generated by MCAM and already discovered a fix. Apparently MCAM can't produce a decent .stl file and second hand software can fix the .stl's. Why the hell can't CNC fix this if several others already have the answer? Several users, including myself, have been bitching about the verify utility with large files for ages, most likely caused by crappy .stl files and we still don't have a fix! Doesn't make sense to me. Gcode, you are right on about Vs9. I would never go back to that! Rickster. I commend you with all your hard efforts trying to get to the bottom of your crashes. I have given up and just deal with the crashes for now. I don't feel very comfortable making changes to Window's settings and permissions without any verification from an expert or recommendations from CNC. Bottom line, this package needs some work.

 

[ 11-18-2009, 10:03 PM: Message edited by: peon ]

[Müřlıń®]

I sure do with someone with more skillz would chime in...

My knowledge is very limited but as far as I can tell with all the research I have done is....

 

The way Mastercam handles memory has changed in X4. X4 is LARGEADDRESSAWARE.

 

This means that X4 is capable of working in a user defined space of 3 GIG rather than the standard 2 GIG virtual memory addressee.

 

XP SP2 amd all later versions of XP use the 3/GIG switch. It also has PAE enabled and tis causes mapping problems wi th 32bit.

 

 

When a 32bit app uses the /3 GIG switch, the kernel has to run in a 1 gig addy vs the standard 2 gigs it normally gets.

 

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So where does the /3GB switch come in? Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, Windows XP SP2 and later and all versions of Windows Server 2003 support the /3GB boot-time option to allow the user mode address space to grow to 3GB. The /3GB option was intended as a short term solution to allow applications such as database servers to maintain more data in memory than a 2GB address space allowed. However, using the /3GB method to increase the user-mode memory space comes at a cost.

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This causes performance decrease on kernel intensive tasks..... Like crunching toolpaths. There are a host of other hardware issues with the use of 3/GIG and PAE in certain hardware configs.

 

I tried to splain it in the crash thread but my limited knowledge of this stuff handicapps meh.

 

Why is it the least qualified person to even talk about this crap(ME) is even trying to add his 2 cents?

 

Search meh... I just have a hunch...and a lot of crimes get solved by going on a hunch...

 

It just seems to me these problems are hardware specific. Meaning only people with certain hardware configs will run into them.

 

Now I could be totally off because I don't know if anyh of you guys systems turn on the 3/gig switch by default? Doed X4 turn it on it it has support for it?

 

just throwing stuff out there to try and solve this...

[neurosis]

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I agree with you. I feel really bad for the guys like Peon, Rickster, Murraymold, and countless others who are having bad problems. Thing is, we aren't seeing these issues, which makes it impossible for us to help CNC Software catch the problems during the Beta cycle. I'm not trying to make excuses, there are some problems CNC Software needs to fix right now. They are working on it though. Still, it doesn't help those people who's jobs are on the line.

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Maybe they need to adopt some of the people that "are" seeing all of these problems in to the beta testing pool rather than continue to use people that are not. Im not saying that they should not use the people that they are currently using, but rather add some of the people that are seeing constant issues.

 

I had about 12 crashes in one day last week on a single file while trying to transform tool paths. I had about 20 crashes and lock ups yesterday while trying to import a 125 meg iges file.

 

I opened that same iges file in X2MR2SP1 without any issues.

 

Ive seen more bugs in X4 than any version that I have used to date.

 

I love the new tool paths, especially Dynamic Milling, but even it has some bugs in it.

 

The operations manager is unstable at best.

[gcode]

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I had about 12 crashes in one day last week on a single file while trying to transform tool paths. I had about 20 crashes and lock ups yesterday while trying to import a 125 meg iges file.

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send it to qc.. they can give you a link to a secure ftp site as it is way too big for email..

[neurosis]

gcode,

 

I cant send these iges files to "anyone". I really wish that I could. There are quite a few problems that I have had with part files in the past that I have not been able to send to QC because of this.

 

We have strict guidelines that we have to follow just to store these files on our internal network.

[Thee Rickster ™]

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Maybe they need to adopt some of the people that "are" seeing all of these problems in to the beta testing pool rather than continue to use people that are not.

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You would have to AT LEAST give me free maintenance.

I have lost thousands and thousands of dollars

with toolpath bugs (gouging) and lost time.