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proposal for CAM Studio in free version of Onshape

fstfst Member Posts: 36 ✭✭
I read that CAM Studio is supposed to only be part of Onshape Professional and Enterprise (so the 2500€ variant and upwards)(?)
Imho a yearly 2500€ subscription CAM would be disproportional for a hobby or small business CNC that cost a few thousand dollars for the entire machine.
So my proposal would be to split this by postprocessor: Postprocessors for CNC machines up to 10000€ could be in the free version, 10k-100k CNCs in standard and 100k+ in professional+.
Then it would be more fitting and realistic - think the yearly subscription of a CAM system should not exceed 10% of the machine cost to be a viable option.

Comments

  • michael3424michael3424 Member Posts: 667 ✭✭✭✭
    I'm not sure that this is practical.  Who is going to obtain and maintain a list of verified machine prices?  Also, for many machines, options can double the price of the machine.
  • fstfst Member Posts: 36 ✭✭
    Assuming postprocessors are (mainly) made by the Onshape team, they have to invest some time into each (class) of machine anyways and maintain a collection of these postprocessors. Think it should be mostly obvious whether a machine is more for hobbyists ($$$$), small businesses ($$$$$) or enterprises($$$$$$+) - even with a factor of 2.
  • michael3424michael3424 Member Posts: 667 ✭✭✭✭
    @ferdinand_strixner - good luck on your quest, then. 

    I've raised a similar request for a "hobby/entrepreneur" version of Onshape, priced at several hundred $/year but Onshape (or PTC) has not been interested.  That's their perogative, so I make the request once a year or so just in case things change.

  • wout_theelen541wout_theelen541 Member, csevp Posts: 193 PRO
    I can definitely see the michael3424 said:
    @ferdinand_strixner - good luck on your quest, then. 

    I've raised a similar request for a "hobby/entrepreneur" version of Onshape, priced at several hundred $/year but Onshape (or PTC) has not been interested.  That's their perogative, so I make the request once a year or so just in case things change.

    I could see a good business case for including at least some CAM functionality for standard and educational users. Differentiating between post processors would be really difficult but I could see a case of opening up 2.5 and 3 axis machines (with limited bed sizes) for standard users. I agree though it is very frustrating if you're a hobbyist using Fusion 360 when you know CAM studio is available.
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