[DaveW]

MillLister Inc. announced yesterday the reduction of price of SmartLister CAD/CAM software from $1,995.00 to $75.00. Times have been tough all around and this is our way of giving back to the community. We hope those that can use it and could not afford it in the past, can finally get the bump they need to survive in these difficult times.

3D Cabinet Cut List Software for AutoCAD with CNC Feature Recognition and Stretching Solids

[ger21]

Is this today only?

[DaveW]

This is the new price. I am hoping to keep it there for good, but that all depends on how many people want it. The more the better. If it can help a select few that otherwise couldn't afford it, then that is better than nothing.

PS. For the interested parties, if you are dead broke and can use it, just call me and I will seat you for free. No games. No gimmicks.

[DaveW]

Come one, come all, probably only a day or two left.

[DaveW]

I have sold 3 seats at $75.00. There have been no responders from CNCzone! It's been this price since 12/22/10. That's 7 days. So, my company made $225.00 for the last 7 days! It would have been different if everyone would have passed the word around for what could be the deal of the decade. That did not happen.

This price drop is over on 12/30/10 at 3:50PST and SmartLister will probably be stopped forever at the first of the year. Come one come all and do it fast, or you may never see this type of functionality in your lifetime again.

[ger21]

While what it does is really great, the lack of a "front end" keeps it from being a usable option in a high production shop.
All our shop drawing submittals are 2D drawings. We don't have a "front end" package, so I wrote a VBA macro to export .dxf files for secific types of cabinets. This goes into SCM's batch .dxf utility for AlphaCAM. It appears to me, that to do what I'm doing with Smartlister would take at least 10 times longer, because I'd need to create solid models of all my cabinets. Or, write a macro to create the cabinets for me. But then that would be an extra step? I consider myself really good at AutoCAD 3D. What about new users. This would be way beyond them, at least in terms of being very productive. For most, the learning curve would be much too steep.

While I seriously though about buying it, even for personal use, the bottom line is that I just wouldn't use it.

I think that a complete cabinet package that can do 2D drawings and output fully layered .dxf's and .csv files, at a price much lower than the main players in the industry, is where there's money to be made. Maybe not. People with $20K invested aren't going to drop it to use your $75 product, even if it works better.

One other thing. I think a big problem for you is exposure. I've been in the business for 15 years, and until I started reading the Woodweb foums a year ago, I'd never heard of SmartLister. And I know all the major players. I've used Pattern Systems, CabinetVision, CabnetWare, Cadcode. But to me, you were not even on the map.

Just my 2 cents. And sorry it's not working out for you. Seems like a good product, but not the complete package a lot of people would need.

[BeanAnimal]

Any way to still get in on this deal? I have attempted to contact Dave via his website, but no answer.

Anybody using the software? Thoughts?

[DavidWishengrad]

Gerry,

I would have to disagree with some of your statements. The exposure level was intentional. I didn't have time to sell people. I was busy coding. That doesn't fault the product. In fact, many custom high end production shops with many CNC machines do use SmartLister and have shelved their 20G+ software packages. One of my customers started in a garage. They are now the biggest store fixture manufacturer in their state, and have been for years.

The understanding of the design freedom and accounting for its importance in manufacturing requires this approach.

If you were working with 3D solids in AutoCAD and need to measure them, cut list them, and/or go to CNC and jsut typed "measure 3D solids in AutoCAD" or similar in to Google, for years, SmartLister would have been at the top of the listings. In addition, no other listing would have provided that functionality. Only SmartLister does these things.

I didn't want my phone ringing off the hook by people who didn't even know how to model in 3D in AutoCAD. My time on the phone is important to service others that were actually going to deploy SmartLister.

As for the learning curve, modeling in 3D in AutoCAD is prerequisite. After that, it’s about 4 hours on the phone with me and you’re rolling and able to do custom stuff by designing it.
Instead of designing advanced math formula’s (parametrics and constraints), the modeling engine in AutoCAD is used for freeform slicing, unioning, subtracting, etc., and the data is extracted after the fact, in batch operations that rival the speed of any parametric software on the market while still allowing design freedom. Don’t let the price at 75 or free fool you. This is serious stuff that only SmartLister does to this very day.

I appreciate your comments.

[DavidWishengrad]

Gerry, are deleating my posts? They seem to be disappearing.