MasterCam's tru COST $$$$

[mold100]

I dedicate my life to other peoples companies, granted I am happy I have a job, and not an unemployed unskilled worker but at 7:30 on sunday night when the rest of the shop is worry free and at home with thier children, where am I.

This always happens to me at every shop I go to.

People who know mw know this and I have trouble with it.I would rather be struggling for myself than making someone else a fortune.But I am still thankful.Is this thinking f%^@54d up?

 

Hardmill and murlin I envy you guys amongst the others trying to make it.

[chris m]

Corey, you've got a lot of years ahead (even a couple more than me, and I thought I was a youngster here) and seem like a bright guy so I'm sure that if you really want to get out on your own you will be able to do it. My friend and his brother just set out on their own and are doing pretty well so far; but I think you have a young family (which they don't) like I do so that enters into the equation very early. My advice, that you didn't need, BTW, is to do what you're doing: learn and earn in somebody else's house until you're ready and then ease into it. I like to help my buddy out whenever I can (and have been) but his place doesn't offer the security I need. 5 years down the road I'll be saying one of two things:

 

1) Damn I wish I went over with Daren went he started up

 

or

 

2) Damn I'm glad I didn't go in with Daren when he started up

 

 

Either way; I'll put food on the table and pay the mortgage.

 

quote:

---

'Rekd teh He who lives by the sword dies by those that don't

---

Did I misunderstand this? Shouldn't it be:

 

'Rekd teh He who lives by the sword kills those that don't

 

 

or does it mean:

 

 

'Rekd teh He who lives by the sword dies by those that live by the handgun

 

 

Maybe I'm missing something; I'm usually pretty good at understanding your signoffs, but not that one

 

C

 

[ 07-15-2003, 12:18 PM: Message edited by: chris m ]

[mold100]

Chris,

 

Thats good advice I figure I wanted to try already but timing was off, I relocated and things are way better here, and I have a tremendous amount of learning oppurtunity so the way I see it is I have a good 5 years if not 7 which will still put me only at 35 years old.

[Rekd™]

quote:

---

'Rekd teh He who lives by the sword dies by those that live by the handgun

---

I pillaged that one from someone else, and may have quoted it wrong. Err, wait... I did it like that on purpose.. yeah, that's it.. on purpose. That way you can interpret it any way you like, yeah, yeah... that's it.

 

'Rekd politically correct, morally wrong

[Harryman]

True cost of Mastercam...Some how this is still on topic.

 

quote:

---

I dedicate my life to other peoples companies...at 7:30 on sunday night when the rest of the shop is...at home with thier children, where am I.

 

...I have a tremendous amount of learning...a good 5 years if not 7 which will still put me only at 35 years old.

---

Four years from now, when your 34 year old wife has full custody of the kids, in your own shop you'll wonder if it was worth it; in The Man's shop you'll know for sure that it was not. The Man doesn't love you as much as the wife and kids do. Shut the Man's effing computer off some time.

[Jack Mitchell]

Corey,

 

I believe you have misinterpreted personal dedication as company dedication. I have a similar weakness when it comes to toughing out the difficult projects.

The funny thing about it is that as soon as the task is completed another takes its place - a vicious circle considering how hard others work around you; but I realize that doing the gravy jobs just gets to boring or too mundane. (Maybe it's my "notice me" syndrome - I don't know).

My personal motivation came when I worked for a man that I felt was a poor machinist - "How could anyone so stupid do so well in a trade that he knew nothing about?" arguably he is very wealthy with many machines, five employees, and bevy of expensive toy cars and boats.

 

Struggling for yourself at sixteen hours a day, just to break even comes at the expense of your family - for I have only really come to know mine in the last four years.

For every guy that makes it there are ten or twenty others that choke and succumb to things like customers that pay in 90 days or never and economic nightmares like this past year.

The American dream is alive and present in all of us as it should be. Being fortunate truly is a blessing, falling into a pile of **** and coming up smelling like a rose has never favored me and likely never will; I can still remember when I was 34 convincing my wife that this is something I need to do while I am young because if I waited for another ten years it would probably kill me.

 

I was selfish and refused to give it up as I perhaps should have. So did I win? No!. Did I learn? Yes, and hopefully learned to become humble along the way. Empathizing with others along the same lines as I am is easily recognizable, alternately, when a competitor is down - kick his teeth out! (The killer instinct still rears it's ugly head every now and then).

 

Perhaps it is I that is all f%^@54d up.

 

Nice response Chris.

 

 

Regards, Jack

 

[ 07-15-2003, 01:23 PM: Message edited by: Jack Mitchell ]

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

The true cost of Mastercam, is relatively low when compared to systems in the same category (mid-range CAD/CAM). WHat lowers the total cost is 1) the free nature of this forum. Very few are the questios when asked properly that do not get at least one answer. Often you'll get many different ways to approach the issue. No forced maintenance. If you buy Version 9 and decide that "X" is not for you, you can wait til the next one, or the one after that (unless of course they decide to change the protection scheme then you'll need to update). Updates are VERY reasonable. You get a bunch of Posts for free with the software. Sure they may need minor mods to suit how you like to see code, my experience has been that MPFAN will work on the lion's share of the machines out there. It's people's pickyness that necessatates changes. Mastercam is by far the most widely taught CAD/CAM package out there period, and as a consequence GOOD Mastercam programmers can usually find jobs, though this economy right now is certainly testing that.

 

With all of that said, you just can't beat Mastercam period end of story. Sure there may be packages out there that can do this better or that better but overall big picture... Mastercam is the best overall package.

 

So RandallXX, why don't you respond to what is actually being said about the product instad of coming off with lousy one liners? Stupidity should be painful.

[gcode]

Grasshopper--

Listen carefully!!

 

One of the costs of owning CAD/CAM

software is maintence.

Some CAD/CAM and verification software dies

if you don't pay the annual maintence fee.

 

If you don't pay 15% of the purchase price

every year, your license dies and you have nothing!!!!

 

Mastercam has no maintence fee. Upgrades are completely voluntary and your license is permanent. There are shops out there still using V6 and V7. They haven't spent a dime on Mastercam in years.

Try that with Catia, ProE or Vericut!!!

 

[ 07-15-2003, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: gcode ]

[TeccBoxx]

Wow you know what the more I listen to you guys the more I understand where everyone is coming from, thanks for setting me straight. All of my complaints on how the post processors work with resellers and everything does seem meaningless when you take into the account on how good thier customer service is and how user friendly the software package is.

 

I am learning something in every thread here thanks a bunch guys.

[skeetboy25]

on the topic of posts: we have 5 3 axis mills and we can run four of them on the same MPFAN post, this post only requiered removing an A0 from the start, finish, and each tool change, after changing ONE LINE in the script it no longer requiers that! Post editing is quite fun once you get the hang of it, and guess what it's a marketable skill.

 

As far as training, I am also a student pilot, would you just climb into a cockpit and taxi off under the excuse "the wright brothers never had a lesson". guess what, they both died in crashes! When avalable, training is worth every penny. Come on, even some manegment gets this, what does that tell you?

 

Converters: CNC INC is still a business, therefore they do what makes busness sense, give the most poplar converters (which are numerous) out free to please the customer, once the popularity (or lack thereof) ceases to justify cost, charge for them. Always remember; programmers, while they can go with out sleep for weeks, must still eat.

 

One of the best lines i've heard in a while

"the only free chese is in the mousetrap"

[Brendan P]

quote:

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Come on, even some manegment gets this, what does that tell you?

---

Usually that they need more classes!

 

For those of you who have had the chance to run Teksoft ProCam,we had to pay our re-seller to create each individual post.

You couldn't change 1 thing in the post because it was like an ecryption.

And even if you changed the name of the post and "saved it",as soon as you tried to post with it,you would get a "hardware lock" error!

Real Garbage.

[Rekd™]

 

'Rekd teh (In the voice of Joe Pechi) "They F*** you at the drive thru, they F*** you at the drive thru, they F*** you at the drive thru!

[gcode]

Bucket,

How long agao did you run TekSoft.

I used it about 4 years ago and it came

with a program they called

Universal Post Generator.

With a little bit of pratice you could create

a custom post for just about any lathe or 3-4X mill.

It was supposed to be an add-on, but somehow I got it included with my regular seat.

It worked very well and I wish MC has something like it.

[Brendan P]

I ran it in "98"

And yes,I forgot,we also had this post gen. option but I never really spent a lot of time with it.

Just when I started to play around with it,they bought (2) seats of Mcam and I never looked back.

Heck,I'll even give away the lock. (no-body with any brains would want it)

Just kidding,it worked at the time.

I will never forget the first time I hit the "green light"(remember this?)the code suddenly appeared and I was blown away!

 

"Bucket teh needs a calculator for everything"