O/T Post Requests- legitimate?

[chris m]

Scott

 

I would not "give away" anyone's work without consent.

 

What I am basically driving at here is that if I, personally or with a little help, developed a post that was tailored for a certain machine [which I couldn't presently do, by the way, as I don't know how] and decided to give it away to you or anyone else, I do not feel this is wrong.

[d0gFartz]

I do agree Chris that $300.00 is steep and those changes should be a freebie but i guess someone saw different...anyhow regardless of what was charged the option is there for the user to make those changes also and not have to pay.Just like the parts you make in the shop,if the vendor could and knew how to he probably wouldnt need your services,same as with dealers and posts.I dont agree though with anyone handing out posts when they can not verify the legitimacy of the users system whether they wrote the post or not,as James said earlier lots of requests come from pirates because they cant call there dealer for help

 

[ 10-01-2002, 12:55 PM: Message edited by: d0gFartz ]

[iowajim62]

Hi all,

Do you people feel there is a legitimate

gripe about post files when you can get

the Post CD and edit posts yourself?

I feel that posts should come with MC since

you can't use the software without them.

I know we're not supposed to bring up $$$

but since this thread pertains directly to

that, here goes. My company has 17,yes that's

17 seats of MC, now that's well over $200,000.00

and yet they still want $3000.00 for a post.

Is that right or greedy ???

Jim

[chris m]

quote:

---

Just like the parts you make in the shop,if the vendor could and knew how to he probably wouldnt need your services,same as with dealers and posts

---

I understand what you are saying and I do agree with you; I just don't like the per hour pricing that I often hear for post work.

 

Such is life

 

quote:

---

Do you people feel there is a legitimate

gripe about post files when you can get

the Post CD and edit posts yourself?

---

Yes

 

I've not had a lot of success understanding post work, even with the help of the post book and CD [which we bought]. I know that many people out here are very skilled at this and I've seen some discussion about training classes for this, but until I get some formal aducation in this type of thing I would like for the services to be available at a reasonable cost.

 

[ 10-01-2002, 01:03 PM: Message edited by: chris m ]

[Charles Davis]

chris m

 

Regading your comment:

[However I do not equate a corporation that develops an operating system with an individual that spends 30 minutes changing G28 to G27 or arc output from R to I,J or editing some code to spit out comments in a given format and charging $300 for his time]

 

You are not just paying for this persons time, you are paying for their knowledge. I spent countless evenings and weekends holed up in my office at home learning about posts.

 

That was time that I could have been out having fun or spending more time with my family. I made that sacrafice so I could be great at my job, and provide better for my family in the long run.

 

For the sake of arguement, if I can fix your problem in an hour and charge you $150, and you spend 50 hours on company time trying to fix it at $25 per hour, which is the better deal?

 

Bottom line: I paid the price to learn my trade just as you have done to learn yours.

 

What may seem like a simple 5 minute fix when you're looking over my shoulder is based on THOUSANDS of hours experience.

 

I guess it's a compliment that we make it look easy, but that's what everyone said about the Wright Brothers AFTER they saw their plane fly.

 

[ 10-01-2002, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: Charles Davis ]

[Tony]

This past spring I was getting a qoute on

"The Mother of all post's"

When I recieved his email, I called my reseller back up on the phone and said "Something happened

With your Email transmission,Somewhere along the way extra zero's were added"!

We laughed about the whole thing

and Basically He said

" Writing/editing posts is like surgery

It might only take a few minutes for the procedure

But its all the experience your paying for"

Eventually, He did give me that post for free.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

---

...I work just as hard tooling, setting up, programming a machine as ANYONE does writing a post so I am slightly offended by some of the pricing that I've seen for certain services offered.

 

Am I wrong?

---

Yes, you are. The skill required for some post work FAR exceeds the skill required to be a machinist, programmer and or setup guy. Sorry but that's the truth. The math that is involved to write a 5 axis post makes trig look like addition and subtraction. For that, the price should be around $3,000-5,000 USD. Perhaps deals can be made by the dealer for pricing breaks but when 40 hours goes into writing a post that requires a skill that few posess, they have a right to charge what the market will bear.

 

I'd be willing to bet that if the owners that actually wrote the check for those high dollar posts that you generous and kind, folks were giving away, you'd bee looking for new places of employment. See, it was not yours to give unless YOU paid for it or wrote it yourself. Besides, it has no real value to you. Yes it makes code for your machine, but you didn't write the check for it so how could you fully appreciate what it does for you???? And yes it is tannamount to giving away an operating system. Will your CNC run without it? Fat chance. Posts are an integral part of the puzzle, and to give them away to a sleazy pirate that refuses to support the product our companies (my company has probably has aroung 20 seats of Mastercam as well throughout the different facilites) have been supporting is just wrong.

 

OUT!

[Scott Bond]

Chris M.

quote:

---

Scott

I would not "give away" anyone's work without consent.

---

Thanks

[Thad]

Just curious...is a post covered in any way under the license agreement of the software?

 

Thad

[chris m]

quote:

---

I spent countless evenings and weekends holed up in my office at home learning about posts

---

Charles, I respect that; I have done the same thing to learn and become more proficient in my trade.

 

That type of effort is why neither of us works at Burger King. I don't think those guys wake up in the middle of the night and say, "I've GOT it!!!! Tomorrow I'll hold the spatula in my LEFT hand!!!!"

 

quote:

---

The math that is involved to write a 5 axis post makes trig look like addition and subtraction.

---

James

 

I am not talking about work of this magnitude, obviously some things are more difficult than others.

 

I don't have a problem with people getting paid; I just pray for reason.

 

[ 10-01-2002, 02:24 PM: Message edited by: chris m ]

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

---

I don't have a problem with people getting paid; I just pray for reason.

---

OK, that's fair. Charles Davis made a good point in another related topic,

quote:

---

Is spending $150 worth getting edit free code?

---

. If I were not the pos writer I am, I'd say emphatically YES!!! When the setup guy says "Hey, James, can you change this for me please?", I go into my file, make the change, post it give it to him and a couple of minutes later, he's running again. How cool is that? I can make changes in Mastercam MUCH faster then they can at the control. So you have to ask yourself.... do you feel lucky? Just kidding, but seriously, you have to ask yourself, "if I invest (and buying/writing a post is an investment because it pays divedends, time saved, accurate code, etc...) this money/time to buy/write a post, when is my return going to be? Well if you have to make 5 minutes of edits at the control for every program and your shop rate is $60. per hour, and you write 3 programs per day, it has paid for itself in less than a week. Sounds like a pretty good return on the invetsment IMHO. Now for the exotic stuff, I think we can all agree that these things don't grow on trees and when it costs the post writer 40 hours of time for a post due to the complexity that person/dealer should be paid accordingly, because they are almost Software Programmers IMHO.

 

JM2C

[chris m]

quote:

---

because they are almost Software Programmers

---

Almost?!?

 

I thought I was a pretty smart cat until I tried to read some post processor code..

 

Yuk!

[Charles Davis]

Post writing is fascinating to me. You have to take:

1. what the software does

2. what the machine does

3. what the cnc programmer wants the code to look like

4. the tools available in the post

 

Then you have to make everything work, every time, in every condition.

 

And, be simple and easy for the cnc operator to use.

 

You have to know:

1. machining

2. cam software

3. the machine control like the back of your hand

4. a decent amount of software logic

 

No, there is no place to learn this, other than the school of hard knocks. Though, CNC Software does offer a 2-3 day post class that's pretty darn good and will definitely get you started.

 

But you have to travel to Connecticut.

[Guest]

Giving a post that was paid for or tweaked by your own company away to another shop whether it is a fellow Mastercam user or any other software user is just silly. Would you give away your companies propitiatory manufacturing process? What would you do if someone walked in off the street and wanted to use one of your machines for say three hours? Would you charge him? Having a good reliable post and manufacturing software to go with it is what gives your company a completive edge. Why would you do anything to lessen your company’s completive advantage?

 

A dealer on the other hand has a whole different set of reasons. By providing free editing to customer posts he is servicing the customer. He is maintaining goodwill. However there is a point at which the dealer is no longer creating goodwill, but is being taken advantage of. I have made many free post edits for customers. Some times I set back and wonder why the customer wants the code a particular way when I know the way the post does it before the editing is correct. The customer more then likely just wants it to look like the code he writes by hand. So they keep asking for free edits. Eventually, I say enough is enough. All further post edits are going to be billed at an hourly rate. Suddenly, the customer say the post is perfect the way it is and no more edits are required.

 

Dealers are also selling a product. If they spent the time to dial in a post for a particular machine type that is prevalent in their area, then they should be able to sell it to their customers with that machine type. This is a capitalistic country. Do you think Microsoft should starting giving away their operating system after they have recovered their development cost? Should a shop owner start giving away his parts after the direct manufacturing cost have been recouped?

 

If you need a post give your local dealer a call. This will give you an opportunity to develop goodwill with them and give them an opportunity to service your account. If you have a bad dealer then call CNC to get your post. While you are talking to them let them know about your dealer.

 

So in conclusion, shop owners do not give away large chunks of there machine time. Therefore, should we expect Mastercam distributors to give away large chunks of their post editing time?

 

[ 10-01-2002, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: Marc Lindsey at San Diego CAD CAM ]

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Nice post Marc. Well put.

[d0gFartz]

I still think making e mails only visible to dealers and admin/moderators should be considered,my reason being is...long story short after doing a 5 axis demo and ironing out the final details and start talking about posts, i hear,and i quote "I already have posts i got from emastercam.com"......hmmmmmm nice,now i guess i have to support them to,needless to say that email from someone cost thousands

[Charles Davis]

DogFartz... good thinking. restricting the emails would solve a lot of problems

[Tony]

O.K. enough...

Even though I have gotten ALL my posts for free

I will not give them out any longer.

Tony

[chris m]

OK

 

I think that we will have to agree to disagree on some points of this. Let's call it a day with this topic; what do you say?

 

C

[Zero]

[McRae]

The exchange of posts that accomplish the interface between machine and Mastercam should, can, and are interchanged amoung the legitimate users of the system - for free for the commodity type posts for 3+1ax machines.

 

The proliferation of 5ax technology is where the posts are so specific to the machine that the exchange between users will not occur as there are barriers of entry that most "Pirate" shop wouldn't be interested in outlaying anyway.

 

Peter E - your original post should have been, "How do we keep pirates off our Forum!!"

[Slick]

I agree Marc, well said! I hadn't looked at it that way, but if you think about it, it is pretty much proprietary. After all Bill Gates probably wouldn't have shared all his little secrets with anybody without charging them, or some how restraining them from sharing with somebody else. So I see your point, unfortunately for me, I'm not after the big buck, I'm sure I'd share with my biggest competitor if they were in a bind.

[Allan Brown]

Long post warning.

 

I don't see how hiding emails addresses would help. If we hid all email addresses, and someone wanted something sent to them, wouldn't they would just include their email address in the message?? Then we have to stay on top of that as well. Way too much work.

 

yahoo and hotmail accounts already allow too much anonymous use of this site in my opinion. Complete invisibility would be far worse. I prefer to see [email protected] addresses. Makes me much more open to lending support.

 

I'd love to ban generic email forwarding and web-based email service addresses from the forum, and use required registration fields including SIM #, company name, and reseller name. Still waiting to hear from CNC Software to see if having SIM numbers would be beneficial or detrimental.

 

Or everyone can pay $20+ a year for use of the site (assuming every single Member pays), and we could hire some admin staff to review every applicant for site Membership. Sound good?

 

--

 

And now for a word on making posts less readily available...

 

In my experience, most *poorly* thought out anti-piracy measures end up hurting licensed users the most.

 

Gibbs apparently keeps pretty close tabs on their posts - e.g. developed in Cali, users can't edit them, etc. So this is all in accordance with some of the proposed solutions here. Just one problem - all of their licensed users are pissed off.

 

My fear as a distributor would be that we might lose some market share as customers bail on the product because they can't get their hands on a decent post. It's all just pretty pictures on the screen unless your post is producing what you need. Not all resellers invest in having an expert post dude on staff. Can we afford unhappy users? Hells no. You're the ones who pay the bills, not the pirates. It's like letting your golden goose starve to death because you're out in the yard trying to catch the wolf.

 

From a tech support standpoint, I would prefer that every Canadian Mastercam user had an Mpmaster-based post processor. I've been editing posts for six years. In the beginning I fixed up common errors in ancient posts on a case by case basis. The only way I dug myself out of a potentially crushing, ongoing and increasing workload was to put everything 95% of our users would need in one post, and then to quietly go about replacing their existing posts. Now when someone asks for a tool table at the top of their NC file, we just turn on the switch - rather than spending 30 minutes each time trying to retrofit the tool table code into an ancient post. A huge problem is that when someone asks for a Centurion V post, someone provides them with a Mastercam V5 Centurion V post that's barely usable with V9, rather then making 30 seconds of mods to V9 Mpfan. I used to change post names of generic posts like Mpfan just to make users feel better.

 

For our company, having a readily available, widely distributed rock solid 3/4-Axis post has saved us money rather than costing us money. And I'm not talking about heavy customization, or special apps - just making the machine run. 5-Axis is a *completely* different story, but we encrypt every one so sharing between users is not an option.

 

--

 

Lastly, I resent the insinuation that eMastercam.com is in any way responsible for software piracy. Users who continue to hint at this will find themselves in poor favour with those who run this site. It's like saying Honda is responsible for car theft. "Well if they didn't make cars, there would be nothing to steal."

 

If the site can help to reduce piracy, let's do it. As it stands, we promote the BSA just under 200,000 times every month through a footer link on every page of this site.

 

[ 10-02-2002, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: Dave Thomson ]

[Ryeker]

You Guys make me smile...

 

You all claim to be here to help but, if a guy asks for help with a post you start screaming "pirate...!"

 

What the hell is all that about...????

 

Some of us ARE legite users who have a great interest but, no time to learn posts... Part of the selling point for me to buy MasterCAM version 5.5 ( I have been using this software for a little while..! ) was the wide range of posts available for all types of CNC machines.

When I have asked for help from In House all I got was a generic post that I had to learn to tweak myself ( dangerous...! ).

 

I asked for help with that a post on this forum AND received it from guys like CADCAM without being made to feel like I was taking food from somebodies mouth or whether I was flying the jolly roger from a flag pole in my back yard..!, Boy how times must have changed.

 

Hmmmm some help forum this just might out to be....

[Ryeker]

Dave Thomson ====> The voice of reason & common sense.

 

[ 10-02-2002, 10:19 PM: Message edited by: Ryeker ]