I have been using Surfcam since 1996. Until about 2009 I paid maintenance to keep up to date. Surfcam was absolutely perfect for my business and could go from art to part in 15 minutes in many cases. Now I would like to have the thread milling options which would apparently require 2 axis advanced. OK. But when I look at the Traditional product and compare it to 4.0 or 5.0 I am not seeing enough to warrant the costs (going by memory here but my last quote was just under $6,000 maybe?)
I have started looking at other options like OneCNC but a brief cursory look and I decided OneCNC would not be as efficient as my old Surfcam product.
My Surfcam 4.0 (and I like this because all my defaults are squared away and haven't done this with 5.0) works fine on Windows 10 (a "thank you" to the folks at Longbow Software for making this possible).
I would love to upgrade to something that makes chamfering and thread milling easier than what my old version allows. I think paying $6,000 is a bit steep for software that seems to be treated like the crazy uncle under the stairs at Hexagon. In this bracket I could consider Mastercam and get training from a place 100 feet from my own front door - I just am not keen on investing the time to learn a completely new package.
I have an old Haas vF3 and an old Haas VF5XT. I do not do any 3D profiling. I am a semi-custom automation designer specializing in adhesives and sealants. Most of my machine design involves parts and pallets that are pretty much 2.5 axis stuff.
Is there any CAM software anyone can recommend as a reasonable transition from Surfcam? I do not want to get wrapped up in Fusion 360 as some of my customers are ITAR and I think cloud based CAM is not a good idea?
Is there something new and awesome for me to reconsider Surfcam that I am missing? For example are the Haas VF posts better now? Is there a good option for nesting parts? Is there now a tabbing function (hop over on final milling pass)?