Mastercam pricing and general questions

[swingwing205]

Guys, can anyone here tell me the general pricing for Mastercam mill 3D?

Also, can anyone here tell me if any of those book/CD learning guides you can get off Ebay are any good for learning X & X2? I'm getting ready to go back to college and start a CAM certificate course, and I'm wanting to learn Mastercam (at least X, hopefully X2 to just be current) along with the other CAM software that the course I'm starting is based around (Featurecam).

The learning guide I'm looking at is this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Learning-MASTERC...QQcmdZViewItem

[tobyaxis]

Your best bet is to go to the MC site, find a local dealer, and get a quote. MC pricing will vary depending on what you need.

[spencer313]

I was quoted $12K for Mastercam Mill Level 3.

[tobyaxis]

Originally Posted by spencer313 I was quoted $12K for Mastercam Mill Level 3.

With or without Solids??

[cadcam]

For that price without.

[tobyaxis]

Originally Posted by cadcam For that price without.

Yea, but at least it will work, LOL.

[Donkey Hotey]

Originally Posted by swingwing205 I'm getting ready to go back to college and start a CAM certificate course

The college may offer a student edition of the software. The others here can probably expand. Other student editions of programs are limited in the size of files they can handle and they turn into a pumpkin after some period of time (12 months?).

[cadcam]

Donkey is right. there are options most schools have the option to offer a educational version good for 14 months at a small price.
But Most do not know it. or in more cases exercise this right.

I offer it at the beginning of every class I start.I also offer them the Demo copy.
But most don't like that they can not save there work.

[cnc metalcraft]

5000 for router level 1

[Mike Mattera]

The educational version is a very affordable way for you to go. I'm sure your college offers it, if they teach a Mastercam certificate class.

As for training: There's lots of good stuff out there. some people are Book guys and some are Video guys. I'm one of people selling on ebay. I have purchased, or see some of the other products on ebay and It seems the cheaper products are just that... cheaper products. My training is based on customer parts and customer problems that I've had to find solutions for, over the past 20 years of using Mastercam. It costs a little more, just as it would cost more if I came to your facility to teach you in person. Cant tell you how many of these CD's we've sold to tech school instructors.

Visit the web site and check out the free samples. I believe that we offer excellent value.


Mike Mattera

[fizzissist]

Shameless plug for Mike.......
I purchased the complete set of v.9 CDs and am very happy with them.

One minor criticism is that it's tough to find a specific function or operation in the training, so you almost need to make your own log of specific things within each module, since there's a lot of different things covered in each.

After you've been through the complete set, you should have a pretty comfortable feel for how the software works.

Have been transitioning to X2 on my own, and it's tricky...new front end, new icons, new ways of doing things....I'm trying to save my allowance for a new set of CDs for X2....

Mastercam's Help function is...sorry Mastercam....functionally worthless for many operations. It often doesn't tell you how to get to the function, or what the function icon even looks like.

...Like if you need to create a Oopsoid from a reverse overlap. You go to Help, type in Oopsoid, and what you find is 2 paragraphs explaining "Open the Oopsoid dialog box". Gee that's great, but what the hell does it look like, and/or how do you get to it????? Serious Mastercam deficiency, IMHO.

Mike's CDs walk you through the whole process, where you can see what he's doing, and you can replay as needed.

I'm in education, and as yet don't teach it, though we're getting to the point where we'll need to (I'd teach it now if I were halfway competent!). In business, or if you're going to be using it for business, the expense of the training is small relative to the time saved.