I’ve threatened to do it for years and I’ve finally done it- I raised the price of MeshCAM. I won’t say that the feedback has been “enthusiastic” but it has been positive. I figured that I should explain some of the reasons why I did it.

The first is the cost of support. About a year ago I added a phone number where users can get a hold of me directly- not a low level guy reading from a prepared troubleshooting guide, but the guy who wrote MeshCAM. This has been well-received but it does have a cost. To be honest, if I could find a way to offload this function to a third-party and maintain the quality of support then I would. Unfortunately I haven’t figured out how yet so I have to factor this support cost into the product.

The second reason is that the features have expanded greatly since the last time I raised the price. I think the last time the price was increased was in the late version 2 or early version 3 era. MeshCAM has gone thru a huge evolution since then and I think it’s fair to say that only thing that MeshCAM 2 and MeshCAM 5 share is the name.

From a competitive view, there’s nothing that offers the features that MeshCAM does for anything near the price. The range of toolpaths, toolpath options, and toolpath accuracy is well beyond all competitors below $500 to $1000.

Finally, price tells a customer what a product is worth. I can go on and on about what MeshCAM has and compare it to competitors but many people will assume that there’s something wrong with MeshCAM, or that it’s not suitable for their application, because it’s “too cheap”. A corollary to this is that I’ve found myself cringing lately when I speak to other software developers and I explain my pricing compared to market norms. I cringe because the next questions is almost always, “Are you selling a substandard product or you just ignoring the market?”

In the end the price is now $250. For corporate customers this is almost nothing; for individuals the cost might be much more siginificant. I’ve always tried to sell software that provides value well beyond it’s cost. I still belive this to be the case and I’ll continue to work to add additional value/features even after you buy.

Version 5 is no longer a beta! I just posted a new release that eliminates all timeouts and enforces the license codes. If you bought MeshCAM or a V4 upgrade in the last year then you get Version 5 for free. If you have a code for MeshCAM Art then you’ll also get Version 5 for free. If you don’t qualify for a free upgrade then you can go to the upgrade page to get a discount on a V5 license.

This release also has new a new change to reduce memory use in the “Offsetting” stage of the toolpath calculation by up to 75%. This is obviously a huge improvement and it should go a long way to reduce out-of-memory errors that can occur when using MeshCAM in larger applications.

If you need a code to try the new release for 30 days then you can go to the download page to get one.

Let me know what you think.

If you’re reading this then I did my job correctly and you’re connected to a new web sever. While I had no major problems with my old web host, it was time to move on. They had a really funky and slow control panel that made simple changes very tedious. I had also been seeing random 10 minute outages. While 10 minutes here or there is not a big deal, I never knew if it was an outage on their end or if it was something specific to my site. They were never transparent about server status and their support was what one would expect from a standard shared hosting plan.

The forum is still on the old server until I know what to do with it. From a security point-of-view, it’s unlikely that I’ll be running anything like that on my main server ever again. VPS hosting is cheap and reverse proxies can hide the fact that you’re running multiple servers so why risk it?

I hope that you’ll find the new site to be faster and with fewer random outages. If you come across anything that’s broken, please send me an email and let me know. Right now the only problem that I know of right now is the video on the MeshCAM Art page.

A couple of days ago I got an email from Michael Hilimire, a new user, and he was kind enough to share some photos of the work he’s been doing with MeshCAM. Michael builds custom guitars using CNC equipment and the photos looked so good that I asked permission to post them here.

If you’d like to get in touch with Michael about having a custom guitar made he can be reached at mikdavhil1 [AT] yahoo.com . Either way, enjoy the photos:

I was doing some work on the site and I realized that I hadn’t posted any updates for while. Here’s what’s been going on…

I just came across the following page:

http://anthromod.com/blog/?p=98

Chris appears to have tried a number of rapid prototyping technologies and has started using the CNC/casting approach outlined at http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/guerrilla_cnc1.shtml . That happens to be one of my favorite pages so I always look for reasons to link to it. You should check out both pages if you’re not familiar with the casting process.

I just saw this page from Karl W showing MeshCAM with SolidWorks and a 4-axis Taig:

http://www.kwartzlab.ca/2011/08/creating-3-dimensional-objects-taig-mill-rotary-axis/

He’s got a much cleaner work area than I do.

I just published the first build of V5 at http://www.grzsoftware.com/v2dl.php .  This includes lots of internal changes to support the coming V5 features as well as:

• 64 Bit Support

• A new “Automatic Toolpath Wizard” in the main toolpath dialog

I have been using only this version for about a month and it seems at least as stable as V4 although I’m sure there are plenty of bugs in there.  I would like some feedback on the new toolpath wizard if you have some time.  The main purpose of it is to analyze the geometry and then enable a “sane” set of toolpaths so new users don’t have to know what the difference between waterline, pencil, and parallel finishing are.

I am already getting upgrade questions so I just want to reiterate the upgrade policy- if V5 is released within one year of your purchase (either a new purchase or an upgrade from a prior version), you will get it as a free upgrade.  I can guarantee that it will be released in less than one year from today, hopefully much sooner.

With all of the powerful CAD/CAM programs out there, one of the most common tasks is the conversion from DXF to g code.    Frequently there is no need to pocket or face the stock- just cut out the objects in the file from flat stock.  Given this simple task, many CAM programs look like overkill.  Can we make this common 2D task easier with 3D CAM software?  Yes we can.

In the circle of engineers and companies that I interact with, most use SolidWorks as their CAD program.  I do know one or two using Pro/E or NX but they’re the odd cases.  A few years ago I had the need to move up from Rhino, a great CAD program that is a great match with MeshCAM, to a parametric CAD program.  My desire to interact with all of these other users, and a great leasing deal at the time, led me to buy a copy of Solidworks.  It has been a great tool to have and it works great with our CAM Software.  Hopefully MeshCAM will be a first choice when you need SolidWorks CAM.

All of that being said, it’s worth noting a few “quirks” about SW that make it slightly trickier to get a file out of than a program like Rhino.