"It's like playing a video game all a day" Enough said....

Aint that the truth... He didn't so much call the shots, but scream the shots. *hucks rocks at him* LOL Good to hear from you Colin

Totally agree. Their turning cycles had quite a lot more capability over Fanuc canned cycles in the early mid nineties, and I believe continue to do so. Their IGF onboard programming produces code bloat, and has some limitations that only CAM (or CAD for coordinates) can solve, but like you, I know several shops that use it over CAM.

Yeah, but try installing Windows 95 on a 2024 computer.

NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNonahnahnahnahNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo Damn stutter

That is a how a good or great reseller should respond. Kudos! I've heard nothing but good things about CCC. I did something similar for one of my customers. They were going to have an outage for anywhere from two days to five days. I generated them one month loaded licenses (five in total) so they could work from home, or anywhere. I've been at the business end of crap service, so I know what is expected

It is unfamiliar territory for me to be opening the Buffalo Trace at that time. Normal for you of course

I've just read through this whole thread. Now I need a drink, and it is 8:40am LOL

I had a customer mention this to me some time last year. He had drunk the Kool Aid, and he kept telling me that a) It was a cost effective option, as he could use Fusion 360 combined with it, rather than spending money on TopSolid. b) He could hire new graduates out of University and pay them cheap rates, or even have his son come in after school and do programming for the company. I did insinuate that using those strategies wouldn't work so well, in my opinion. Now, almost twelve months later, he is advertising for skilled programmers, and he's ditched Fusion. The kool aid jar was empty

Cimco also provide NC Code simulation, although it is considerably limited compared to Vericut. Another product I recently witnessed is Eureka, an Italian CNC Simulation/Verification product. I dont know a whole lot about it.

This kind of thing happens in pretty much all CAM software. It isn't isolated to Mastercam, and Crazy^Millman explained it on the nail.

Okuma... Yes, I was quite surprised when the technician said it couldn't be done. Dont get me wrong, I am a big fan of Okuma (especially the controls), but that really was a surprise.

Indeed. We have been caught out on that with our B400W and the U3000 And to add insult, you can't control the the chip conveyor with an M code. At all. We had our technician look at it, and nope... The P200 and P300 controls are nice, but seriously there are a few options that should be standard....

It must be horrible having cumbersome handling of fixtures and workholding in verify/simulation. Or toolpathing for that matter. *cough* Sorry, couldn't resist

Purely from a user perspective, I have used MC, Unigraphics/NX, Solidworks, Inventor and then finally, TopSolid, in that order. When I was a Mastercam user, I did some pretty hefty modelling in it, such as injection moulds, impellers, Impeller Blade dies, and all manner of 3D prototypes. I always stated that it was a good capable modeller, even in the pre Solids days. However, once I started using Unigraphics etc, I realised how much more productive full blown CAD modellers are, especially when making changes. Not to mention freeform modelling (notably variable fillets, and surfacing functions). However, while I was comfortable with Unigraphics/NX, I never got to grips with Inventor or Solidworks. Both those applications I really disliked using. When I started using TopSolid, I found the modelling and assembly management really good. Very easy to use, and very capable. What I find interesting nowadays, is when shops get TopSolid for programming (and have designers using Solidworks), once the design staff check out TopSolid, they always have positive comments about it, and to the point that the designers start to look at TopSolid closer.