Well, Gee... Multax, I didn't know I was going to get a lecture on English, Grammer, machine technology, and what ever else you might be trying to show off here... but let me restate my, um... opinion, one more time for you... quote: My (suppressed) opinions are, as I stated, my (suppressed) opinions. They are based on my short career (15 years or so) as a machinist/programmer in the USA, on the machines I've ran before. And BD is, in my (suppressed) opinion, THE BEST. Period. Now, what part of my opinion did you not understand??? Also... What part of; quote: ...on the machines I've ran before did you ALSO not understand??? Given the knowledge of my experience, however short it may be, and the performance of the different machines I have ran... I will state it ONE MORE TIME FOR YOU... BD is, in MY OWN SUPPRESSED OPINION... the best, PERIOD!!! I have made my decisions on my OWN PERSONAL EXPERIANCE, and that's it. Stop trying to make this into a peeing contest, because we're probably not interested in you self proclaimed supreme knowledge of the subject of which machine is better than which, and who can complete a sentence or not. The man asked for opinions, and that's what we're (trying) to give him. Now get off your soap box... and let it go.

Except for the new location and somewhat annoying process to reply to a thread, I don't notice that much that's different except that you finally moved to UBB 6. Also, in my (somewhat suppressed ) opinion, I can hardly wait for v9 OR 10!!!

Sounds like a good machine. But let me (politely) point out that Mastercam lets you make ANY drill cycle you could ever imagine. I even made one for a drop stop! (putting a dowel pin in the spindle and having it locate the part, all done in the program with no manual edits.) That's one of the many great features about this software.. you can make it do just about anything you want, even the dishes!

Multax, Let me rephrase my statement... Fadal? Pffft. HAAS? hrmmm. Boston Digital? Now you're talking! In my suppressed opinion, BD is the premier surfacing center. Period. They don't get any better than BD. But you can buy 3 or 4 Fadals or HAAS' for the price of 1 BD. I've ran Mori's, but not surfaced with them. If money is no object, BD all the way. Otherwise, HAAS or maybe Kitamura. (A bit more pricy than HAAS, but don't plan on seeing the repair guy around, cuz they don't break very often.) That better?? Since I haven't ran, or even HEARD of some of the machines you're boasting, I can hardly make an experienced claim to it's capabilities/pricing. My (suppressed) opinions are, as I stated, my (suppressed) opinions. They are based on my short career (15 years or so) as a machinist/programmer in the USA, on the machines I've ran before. And BD is, in my (suppressed) opinion, THE BEST. Period. But then, we're not supposed to express our opinions on this forum. So it's a mute point as far as I'm concerned. (sorry, webby, but I gotta take the digs when I can. I still wub joo, but dang...) [This message has been edited by Rekd (edited 07-26-2001).]

Agreed, Mike. But having your voice edited/removed is not worth anything I can get from or give to this forum... If I want an opinion, I don't want it to be riduculed, supressed or hindered by 'the powers that be' or their 'sponsers'. Even if the opinion I request may cause someone to get upset by seeing how people REALLY feel, or how they percieve things. [This message has been edited by Rekd (edited 07-25-2001).]

As an adendum to my previous post, I feel I am not allowed to make any, um, judgements on what machine to buy. So you'll have to figure it out for yourself. Also, please delete this topic, as it contains people's opinions about machinery that may be unsettling to the manufacturers.

So why is it ok to discuss the GOOD points about the dealers and not the BAD ones...? I was under the impression that this forum was for USERS, not for DEALERS to show their shiny side. But alas, it would appear that it is just being white-washed, and someone was offended by what may have been the truth. Too bad they can't just take it for what it's worth and try to do something to make it right. Public opinion is crucial. And to supress it is un-constitutional. I did not have the pleasure of reading that particular post, so I may be way off base, but in my opinion, and it's just an opinion, if a dealer does good and can be praised on this board, then why can they not be told about doing bad? Mayhaps Webby should delete ALL posts containing opinions about dealers/software/machines/programmers/machinists/computers/OS's/video cards/hardware/beer/cereal/lawnmowers etc etc etc... Well, I just read the Agreement we all 'read' when we signed up for this forum. And in it's OWN paragraph, with nothing else, is the statement Complaints about Mastercam resellers will not be tolerated. So in my supressed opinion, I feel that praise should also NOT BE TOLERATED. If we're not allowed to know about the bad, we should not be allowed to know about the good. [This message has been edited by Rekd (edited 07-25-2001).]

Fadal? Pffft. HAAS? hrmmm. Boston Digital? Now you're talking! BD is the premier surfacing center. Period. They don't get any better than BD. But you can buy 3 or 4 Fadals or HAAS' for the price of 1 BD. I've ran Mori's, but not surfaced with them. If money is no object, BD all the way. Otherwise, HAAS or maybe Kitamura. (A bit more pricy than HAAS, but don't plan on seeing the repair guy around, cuz they don't break very often.)

I am probably mistaken, but I used to use Geopath years ago, and the file extensions were .GE3/.GEO, Wasn't that mastercam as well?

Very nicely put, Simtech. And Ken, you're correct in the millions of mouse clicks.. Cimitron REQUIRES a 3 button mouse. In order to be effecient in Cimitron, you will essentially need to learn to play the piano!! (The Piano keyboard being your mouse!!)

Ken is right. It is VERY expensive to buy and maintain. It is also VERY VERY powerful. But with that power comes complexity. Also be aware that, if you're used to the upgrades provided for Mastercam, you're in for a big let down every time Cimitron releases an update. They've always been buggy, and I would recommend NOT deleting the previous version before upgrading. It's that bad. Tech support, as Ken said, sucks. It's like pulling teeth to get support from them. They are not in the US, and seems to me that they don't really care about the support that much. Once you get used to it, though, you can create complex programs fairly quickly. It is, in my opinion, considerably more powerful than Mastercam. But there are very few shops that actually need that much more power. If you're doing anything but THE MOST COMPLEX programming, I'd suggest sticking to Mastercam. Also, Elad... This forum is a great place to get advice from peeps about 'the other' software packages out there. I've had the pleasure of using several of them, including but not limited to GibbsNC, Virtual Gibbs, Cimitron, Surfcam, Bob*cough*cad, Geopath, EZMill and a few others. Mastercam is, IMHO, the best all around. With the awsome interface, configurability, usability, support, CHooks, and the post processor configurability. Kudos to the entire CNC team!! Rekd [This message has been edited by Rekd (edited 07-21-2001).]

palone!!! (spelling??) Sup bud! I'm doing good. Working at one of my old student's parent's shop. Great people! (Thanks for the lead, Charles!) I'll email you a copy of the setup sheet template. Read through the headers for instructions on how to deal with the part origin and stock origin. You shouldn't have any problems with it. If you make any awsome changes to it, please forward them on to me... See ya later! Rekd [This message has been edited by Rekd (edited 07-13-2001).]

Here's a good example of how the setup sheets 'should' come out... including max depth... http://www.emastercam.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001041.html Look at the last post in that thread. That's exactally how it came out of MC, with no mods at all. If you're interested, let me know. [This message has been edited by Rekd (edited 07-12-2001).]

There's an (old) book on posts, but it's more reference mat'l than teaching mat'l. What I did, was, (after backing up the original), open the post and start reading it. Then when you're completely confused, turn on the debugging so you can see what's generating the code. Of course, you'll want to have at least SOME comprehension of any popular programming language, like C or VB, or even advanced BATCH. (Wow, remember the good ol days of DOS .bat files...?) There's also the online help. (You may need to d/l that help from this site if you haven't already, it's under "POSTS")

Yep! Got one. That's my long sleave, lock-tight, wrap-around jacket. I usually wear it when I'm bad, or the wife's doesn't want me to put up a fight!

"And The Winner IS......" Webbie! by a knockout in round 43! Please don't forget your door prizes on the way out. Thank you and come again. Lol, I guess that's prolly gonna be the end of that. I know, from personal experience, , when webby refers to alt.machines.cnc, the conversation is pretty much over. [This message has been edited by Rekd (edited 06-05-2001).]

Very nicely put, trev

any idea how much CNC is losing? just cruious

Ron, that's an invasion of privacy, which is ALSO ILEGAL!! You can't resort to those means to catch these fools. When you do that, you're bringing yourself down to their level, and they'll beat you with experience! And as for the 'lost sales' of $3.2 billion dollars, if you're talking about just Mastercam, it's just not true... Do you think that every person that uses a bootleg copy would have actually BOUGHT it had they not been able to get a pirated copy? Absolutely NOT!! In fact, I'm estimating that CNC Software has not even GROSSED more than $1.5 billion dollars from mastercam. (Considering $15,000.00 per seat, times, say, 55,000 seats, is less than $1,000,000,000.00.) $3.2 Billion in losses is an absurd number when they haven't even grossed 1/2 of that. I do not condone using pirated software to make money. But on the same token, I do not think that someone using pirated software to educate themselves should be delt with as severly as people/companies making money off it. Autocad is a prime example; they have, in my opinion, one of the worst user-friendly cad systems going, (for the big guns, anyway), and yet they have an extremely large "legitimate" market share! Why? cuz it's 'known' software. Everyone has it, and everyone knows how to use it, so that's what companies buy! (Yes, many companies do not base their purchases on performance, they base it on usability) Micro$oft is another prime example, in a different field. Their software is EVERYWHERE! Why? Because it's good software? Hell no! It's some of the worst BLOAT-WARE/CRASH-WARE I've seen! It's because they're not concerned with the 'little people' stealing it, they're worried about the big boys! But the big boys won't buy it if no one knows how to use it, so they let people learn from it. In short, pirated software does 2 things, it takes money away from the owners cuz people don't buy it when they can steal it, and it gives money to the owners cuz people buy it cuz they know how to use it. I don't think it all evens out in the end, but it's not a lose-lose situation. (hmm, this is prolly gonna ruffle some feathers... sorry it turned into a book, but it's a very touchy subject with both BAD sides, and GOOD sides.)

Correct, James!! Look at everything, I mean EVERYTHING around you, and I guarantee that 99.9% of what you see has had something to do with our field of work. Machinists, (generally speaking), have their little fingers in it all. That should give you all a good feeling. Rekd

Charles Davis is right, this is a trend that happens almost every year here in San Diego. (Some years are worse than others) And while business does slow, it never stops. I can't remember EVER not seeing jobs in the papers for machinists/programmers. I guess we as machinists/programmers are lucky that way, to have a job almost anywhere in the world. This holds especially true for me today, as this is my last day at my current job. I have known for 2 or so weeks that I was going to be leaving, and didn't go out looking for a job until 2 days ago. I found one the very first place I went. Working 4 10's, for real good money and nice bennies. Plus, no more 45 minute commute in nasty I-15 traffic. It's 7 minutes from my house, no freeways!! Yays!! So although things are slow, they have never stopped or gotten to the point where good programmers can't find work. Hope it's the same in your neck of the woods. I don't think I have ever regretted getting into this line of work. My dad said I'd never go hungry as a machinist. I may never get rich either, but I'll never go hungry! [This message has been edited by Rekd (edited 05-31-2001).]

Kudos to all you teachers out there! I am an instructor for CNC/CAD/CAM also, and really enjoy it! It's nice to see so many teachers that have actual hands-on experience, as opposed to the ones that only read about what we do and then try to teach it.

I've got a TFC (Half-Life's Team Fortress Classic) we can play on. It's called dUNgEON2Fort[H2H]. My alias is -E}{C-FukNRekd[H2H]. Everyone from here gets free milk and cookies for showing up!!!

Yeah, baby, that's what I'm talking about!!! Bullet to the head, now make the parts right !!!

Quake? is that a new CAM software? Have you tried TFC, one of the mods for Half-Life? IMHO it beats Quake hands down!! The weps are more realistic, great engine and grafix. The Counter-Strike mod is also good, but lots of ways for peeps to cheat unless the game server is running Punk-Buster. (By the way, everyone, welcome to the new Mastercam Gaming Forum!!!)