Re: Looking for training book on Mastercam post processors
Originally Posted by
Green0
The people that should be making the training materials for the software are CNC software (MASTERCAM). I bought a bunch of books. They don't really do what I want which is to receive a working knowledge of tools and an understanding of parameters. They instead seem to be like "paint by numbers" books where the inferences are all supposed to be inferred rather than an actual explanation given. Perhaps that's because no one really understands all the parameters. Linking parameters for example is a dialog I don't understand in milling operations. There are like 4-5 values and it only ever seems like I need maybe 2? The picture without word explanations menu format doesn't help. I want to know what I'm supposed to be telling the software but after $36,000 in software and $12,000 in training, and $1000 in third party books, I can't say I know that. I often take several attempts to get an operation to populate and work properly and it bothers me that there isn't an obvious path to a better place.
The biggest elephant in the CNC world is the question of "how much training should this take?" Resellers always want to say something like, "I like to start guys at 3 days." The implication being that it is totally awesome software and no time will be required to learn it. Then you dig deeper with a question like, "So I should be competent in 3 days." And they start backpeddling with stuff like, well then you might want to come back for another 5, and then if you ask them another question you will quickly understand that training is a complete bottomless pit with no solution. The reality, at $1500 a day, it might actually take a year of one on one training to build a mastercam expert. So if you have $457,500 to spend on cam software and 305 free days to burn, I would expect you to be a happy customer at the end of the pipeline. The training the re-seller gave an employee was ~3.5 months from what I heard. That's $105,000 of training. For me as a shop owner I have to realize if I don't want to invest that money in an employee, I have to program for my shop, so it's not just a problem for me the customer. It's a problem in that it is so not user friendly that guys on the floor who want to learn it I really am going to have major obstacles to teaching or ever giving that opportunity to. I'm not currently qualified to teach them and I have a a year on the software. I feel like it would be 5-7 years before I would be qualified to teach them.
The software is essentially free compared to the human investment, mental and financial turmoil you will endure to become an expert programmer with a software, because the softwares are still stone age. They haven't reached a level of user friendliness that reduces the human relationship to something simple.
Funny that you think takes that much money to learn the software. it maters how deep you want to go. you would be surprised how deep I go teaching just my begging class at the local college. I do not use books all hands on. but the one course sponsored by your company about $300 for 88 hours and you learn from a 30 year user and programmer.
I am sorry your exprenece has been so bad.Bit like any software it takes time in front of using it. There is no way to teach all the option to a person in say 3 days.
(Note: The opinions expressed in this post are my own and are not necessarily those of CNCzone and its management)
Cadcam
Software and hardware sales, contract Programming and Consultant , Cad-Cam Instructor .