6 min 41 sec Microsoft Windows Xp Professional 2002 SP2 MasterCam X2 MR1 Clone PC Intel Dual Core 6700 @ 2.66 Ghz 2.0 Gig Ram 10,000rpm Raptor for operating system: Sata 7200rpm Western Digital for programs and data: Sata Two(2) x Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX 512 MB 30 inch Dell Monitor

I think we must follow all my posts. My issue with the education software has already been solved. CNC is already making changes to allow the education institutions to open and save all formats. The only issue I was talking about at present is the Multi-Axis add on. I will be talking to my reseller in the New Year, but I felt this issue important enough that all Professors and Instructors get fully informed with all the changes that are occuring with the Mastercam licenses. I am sorry you took it as if I already made up my mind to switch. Thant is not the case. As a well rounded Professor I look long and hard before making any rash desicions concerning the education of my students.

I guess opening up a dialog on the education forum doesn't seem to work without getting blasted with all this irrelevant information. What possible does removing parts of the Mastercam license to the eduction systems have to do with using illegal software? All one has to do is search the internet and I am quite sure they can get what ever software they want. Saying that 90% of that software is all educational is one hell of a leap, especially when you can't even post code with it. I am not going to cover all the statements made by James but really you don't believe everything you wrote. If the Colleges and Universities had to pay the full costs of all software sold I feel very few sons and daughters would be able to afford to go. The costs would outway the benefits and thank god the software companies don't see it the same way. On my last point, why should I have to talk to my reseller when my licenses are renewed. Their comes a point in time when you must rely on them not making changes without notification. You must agree you wouldn't be to pleased if everytime you renewed your license something was changed. Hans

I would like to thank everyone with their response. It seems I haven’t been the only one with concerns over the recent changes made by CNC to their education package. I did get an email from Will Slota explaining to me that they made a change to the file format for the education package. Apparently we will be able to load EMCX and MCX file extensions and save to both formats. This will please our industrial partners when they come over for their training. While I was digging further into our agreement with CNC I also noticed they have removed our multi-axis license. I wonder at what time I would have gotten an official notice about this change. I as a professor would look pretty foolish asking my students to do their assignments and then realizing we no longer own the rights to machine multi-axis. The next thing they will probably do is try and increase our maintenance costs so in the end we are paying more for less. I am sorry but it seems CNC Software Inc. is digging deeper and deeper into the Colleges and Universities funds and we are receiving less and less for it. I hope they do realize we are not a profit making industry. Our mandate is to train students and clients and that is getting more and more difficult with the ever increasing costs of this software. I already pay an Art add on for one of my 20 seats. I refuse to pay for any more. Now I guess we are supposed to pay for Multi-Axis for each license. How can CNC Inc change our licenses at a whim? We have always owned Multi-Axis and now it is no longer included. What is one to think about such practices? This company is moving backwards and not forward like other companies such as Autodesk and Solidworks to name a few. I will use Autodesk as an example because this is what I use with Mastercam. When the students buy their text books ($120.00 Canadian) they also receive a complete set of CDs from Autodesk. What is included is Inventor Professional 11, Autocad 2007, Autocad Mechanical 2007, and Mechanical Desktop 2007. All software is their complete industrial version with no limitations but one. The license is good for one year after installation; the students love this. I can certainly tell you I hear less and less about illegal software being used. I certainly can’t get into the heads of CNC Inc and their direction in this matter, but I for one am hitting my head against a wall. James Meyette wrote “Not to defend the core issue but by doing what you're threatening, you would be doing your students a GREAT disservice by teaching IRRELEVANT software. You may as well teach them AuraCAM or some other software barely anybody uses. Here in the states, Community Colleges mission in Industrial Education is to teach what industry uses. Some colleges teach SurfCAM, some Gibbs, and of course others teach MasterCAM. If that lion's share of industry is using Mastercam and you're not teaching it, you're not only violating the spirit of the "cause" of community colleges but you are making your program irrelevant. If you want to make your program irrelevant, how would the Dean feel about that? How would local industry feel about sending their employees there if you're not teaching what they use?” Well I can certainly see James point of view but I really don’t see Edgecam as a piece of IRRELEVANT software. Just the opposite. If it wasn’t for Professors like myself and others who do look at all the issues and not blindly follow James’ advice only 2 or 3 packages of software would be taught at the education institutes in the world. So what we would have is software companies paying millions of dollars to companies to use their software and locking out all others. Once imbedded into the education systems of the world you then start making changes so they have to pay more and more money to teach their software. What a concept! Like Microsoft is trying to do to Linux to prevent them from growing too powerful. If you force Colleges and Universities to change to other Cam packages because of limited resources what is one to do. You only have so many options available to you. Freeze all your licenses and fall behind industry, or introduce new cam packages that will still allow the students to see and use Multi-Axis machining. You know just because we are forced into the latter doesn’t mean the other cam package is irrelevant. What does it mean when more and more Colleges and Universities are forced in this manner? The other Cam packages will start to grow and have a presence within a larger market place. I am quite sure industry would also like more options when deciding what to introduce into their companies. You know all these issues started innocently about a few months ago when I received an email about the education changes. It feels like I have a gun held to my head and told we are going to make these changes and you will go along for the ride whether you like it or not. I am quite sure I am not the only education institution happy with the ride; they just haven’t looked at all their changes yet. In most institutions you will see that an IT department gets the software and the actual Professors won’t know about the changes until the software is loaded into their systems. Boy will they get an eye opener when they tell their students to get their projects done. So what do we get for 5000.00+ dollars a year? Slowly but surely we will be moved to a basic license with limited uses. Already they have removed all our Multi-Axis capabilities. For 20 seats that I carry I am lucky to get 4 box sets sent to me with manuals and CDs. I only get them because I have to complain about that too. I have a reseller who disables my licenses ever year for “our own good”, so every summer I have to scramble and try to get everything running before I go on holidays. If I don’t catch it in time they change the capabilities of my hasps so my add ons that we paid for are disabled and unable to use. So again I have to keep reminding them we actually own the license unless CNC Inc revokes them. To this day I am still waiting for my Art license for my hasp. Still hasn’t arrived. Am I frustrated?!!! You all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Hans Foerster Professor Mechanical Techniques Fleming College 555 Bonaccord Street Peterborough Ontario 705-749-5520 ex:2226 [email protected]

Hello people, I have belonged to this site for quite awile now but until now have not posted an email. I am not sure how other members feel about the new file format being introduced into the education system by CNC Software Inc, but I for one am thinking of freezing all our licensces at this College. We pay 5000 a year for our maintenance licensce and what we as a college receive is absoulutly nothing from Inhouse Solutions. In fact it is up to me to download the latest software and patches from their server. I don't know about anyone else but this is getting rediculous. So if I want the help files I must now print the latest PDF files myself. So now the latest attack on the education institutions is to change the file format. So all the industrial training is going to be a shame. I guess we are suppose to train these people on our systems and all the work they bring in from their job sites are going to be destroyed with this new file sytem. All files are none transferable between systems. So who is this actually going to benifit. No one from what I can tell. Oh yes, MasterCAm will try and sell student versions of their software, which I will not be recomending they buy to use. I will not allow their files onto our systems with this new file format in place. Anyways I had to vent, and it is time for all education institutions to stand up and prevent this from happening. Without our help in using their software maybe they will get the hint. Fron a Professor who is seriously going into EdgeCam after this is all said and done. Hans Foerster Professor Mechanical Techniques Fleming College [email protected]

Well I am writing this again because it did not post for me the first time! How can you edit those files if they are compiled files, can you explain this process for me. Getting very frustrated when you can't even make new post processers and machine defintions without loosing your data. You start looking like a fool infront of students after redoing all the defintions for our cnc machines and then nothing working. Could someone show me in the documentation that explains that if you do not install MasterCam in their default directories yor defintions will not copy over properly. Sorry to vent but damn!!!!! Hans

My H values and D values all defaulted to 0 instead of the actual numbers per my previous settings. The G02 G03 codes changed to I and J instead of Raius where I had set it. It seems to me when copying the machine definition files to other computers they drop back to their defaults. Once these setting have been done shouldn't they stay the same until changes are made. This is why I was wondering if their is another file that actually holds the new settings when copying over the posts and machine defintion. Or again maybe I am doing it all wrong and have no idea why this is happening. Thanks Hans

Bump, Does anyone else ever run into this problem? Thanks

This is nothing new for me, but I thought this was straight forward. I developed a new post with a new machine control and machine definition file. I saved all 3 files and then brought it to the college to uplaod to my system their. To my surprise when I generate the CNC code from these files they are not giving me the same output that I receive at home. Yes, i started a new drawing and loaded all the files before creating the geometry for the part. Is their another file that I need that has the changes to my defintions that I am missing? Thanks Hans

I was wondering if their is a Reference PDF file for the post processor development like they had in version 9. I believe it was somewhere around 1100 pages. I am looking for one for X. Thanks Hans

John13 I changed all the settings as per your instructions. I then gave my students my post, machine def, and control definition file. Out of 8 students who are using MasterCam X only one machine acted properly. Gave the proper H value output in the NC Code. I tried looking at his settings and they are identical to mine. Am I missing something or should I start from scratch and rewrite all my files. Thanks for all your help.

Thanks for all your help. I tried all the above and still no joy. Maybe it is the order I am trying to do it in. I have it using the tool numbers from the library and not from the tool head for some reason. I have confiqured it from an exsisting file and the control definition. Nothing seems to work. I feel very foolish for some reason. It seems so basic. Using MasterCamX Mill Level 3 MR1/SP2 Modified MPmaster X Sp1 update3 Post Thanks Hans

Good day, I have been surfing this forum for a bit so I thought I would start asking some of my questions here. I am actually new to MasterCamX so finding everything is taking me longer then expected. Probably my age , burned too many brain cells when I was younger. I seemed to be able to get this on version9 but I am finding it difficult to find the setting I need to change so that my H variable is set. For some reason my cnc output lists all my H values as a 0. I just reread my post. It is for the tool height offset variable. Thanks Hans