Honestly, I don’t see that. The rationale for free CC is to support the hardware - so that clients don’t have a software hurdle to overcome…the business is in the hardware for them. It’s a matter of “do what you do well”. Plus, it would require a great deal more resource for Carbide to be in the software business for real. They’re likely already feeling it with the Pro version (or will, when it’s time to make some numbers and don’t have the volume). Software is a completely different business.
If the problem is the cost of support - particularly with non-customers - I think the answer lies somewhere in what @Tod1d is surfacing - being able to identify who you need to support with your full resources - and who will get best-effort support.
In the meantime, this whole discussion is revolving around a capability that does exist, even for non-customers - but it’s just not as convenient for them as it used to be. Well… um… tough?
NOTE: I wrote this before seeing Tod’s comment above…so maybe it’s no longer available because you can’t connect Motion to a non-Carbide machine. If that’s true, then yes…it’s “taken away”
You were making the argument that since people don’t pay for Carbide Create, they should shut up and just basically do testing and give feedback. So, perhaps a nominal fee to use Carbide Create would improve engagement and reduce the need for C3D to be so defensive, and stop forum members calling people who use ‘freeloaders’.
I didn’t say “Shut Up”…I said they could contribute (voluntarily) to discussion and make requests, etc. but that they weren’t entitled to the same level of input as a paying customer. I’m not telling anyone to be quiet.
This reminds me of when cable first came around and people realized that they could get certain channels for free…so they did. And then the cable company changed the technology and suddenly, the free-ride went away…and people were up in arms.
The “Take away” of something you’re not licensing, not paying for, not in any way contracted to use - is just not a take away.
EDIT: And let me add, that there isn’t even an encouragement from Carbide to have non-customers use CC - they are just not stopping it. It’s not the same as if, say, Google started charging for search - because they market their product as available for all. Carbide has always (as long as I’ve seen) promoted CC as “Free for our customers”.
Something that would make this process a bit smoother is if you could enable/disable toolpaths in Carbide Motion. So instead of having a single gcode output blob in the c2d file, have a Carbide Create generate gcode output blobs for each toolpath group and have an interface in Carbide Motion to select which gcode blobs to run.
That’s something we talked a lot about, and it might be something that we look at in the future, but we couldn’t get comfortable with the idea. It felt like it would be really easy to end up running the wrong jobs/toolpaths and the UI got convoluted quickly.
I am a little late to the above conversation.
As we know CM is quite limited but on the flip side it has great work flow, so the question is how do you use CC with G Sender or UGS when you need a bit more flexibility ?
And for me there is a standard that has been around for a long time and we should continue to follow it. I am just not a fan of proprietary or reinventing the wheel, Just seems like there should be a better way then trying to go proprietary.
If it is a support thing , lots of software out there comes with “try it as is”, “use at your own risk” / No support. I dont know the back end business issues however there must be a better way then causing pain and suffering to your paid customers,
I personally started do more research on other software, I don’t expect everyone to agree, it is just a thing of values to me, and weather or not I want to support this direction.
Just think where we would be if everyone went down this path I have seen this direction ruin other products in my past so it might have some emotional history for me
My opinion is free of charge today
They’re opposition to the cloud is a bit telling as version 7 now “locks you into a vendor” (i.e. it only works with their machines - as i understand it):
For what it’s worth, I do not own a Shapeoko. I got started into CNC’ing a couple of years ago when I retired and went the route of Bob’s CNC (less expensive). I am happy with my purchase and have used Carbide Create to since that time. I have enjoyed following other 's posts on the community and learned a lot just from seeing what can be done. I have not been a drain on the system (I don’t think), and my only posts have been complimentary or trying to help someone struggling (like me) with an inlay. I am happy to continue to use version 6 as has been suggested in this thread.
Shutting off gcode export (it seems to still be generated in version 7) seems a bit punitive and doesn’t seem to directly address the initial issue, but who am I to argue. It seems like support will be specifically for version 7 users (who must be shapeoko owners - maybe/maybe not customers), so any customers who opt to remain on version 6 (maybe they don’t want to change their workflow or whatever) may not get the support they need?
Anyway, I appreciate this communities openness, talent, and willingness to share.
Could the Keyhole toolpath be extended to be use with the dovetail bit to cut grooves for making jigs that use the MicroJig dovetail type clamping system?
V6 will continue to run for a long time. It’s not cloud-based and there’s no kill switch in it so you should continue to have good luck with it.
I suspect you could but it might be better to come up with a workflow where you run it first with a cutter that’s a little bigger than the dovetail shaft, since most dovetail cutters don’t cut on the shank, and then run it again with the dovetail cutter.
Just loaded CM 566 (upgrade from CM 537) and CC 714 (both very nice, love CMs new features ). One feature to consider and one possible bug in CC:
when importing a second cd2 in CC, could notes for the two files be merged?
Possible bug: When editing a v carve toolpath, I can change the vectors but it seems like the path does not update and the selected vectors revert back to the original selection. Editing contour toolpaths works fine. This may be a user (me) problem and not a bug.
Thank you!
PS. Envy you writing software. Something I really enjoyed during and after college 35 years ago (on a monochrome monitor from C prompt while sipping Heinekens and St.Pauli Girls late on the weekends).
I agree with some of the other posters that the decision to remove gcode export is antithetical to Carbide 3D’s values, at least as I understood them. Similar to @gdon_2003 ‘s story, I put many hours on a 3018 with Carbide Create + Candle, and that led me to buying a Nomad. The fact that the gcode is actually generated and stored in the c2d file itself in v7, BUT is salsa20 encrypted (as pointed out by @Gerry ) is a major slap in the face. I mean, come on. Do you really want people wasting their time building cracked versions of CC? They should be spending that time using the software, becoming enchanted by it, and getting converted to Carbide 3D hardware and software customers, like gdon_2003 and me. Obviously, it’s your guys’ business and software, but it’s still legitimate to point out that holding gcode export hostage to the Pro version is an obvious regression from free software to borderline ransomware. It reeks of hardware companies developing firmware-locked oscilloscopes with crippled specs. People in this decade see through that kind of thing.
Absolutely, but since we try to avoid options and popups where possible, it’s got to be “always merge” or “never merge” the notes. What does everyone think?
Yes, I said this was something that we expect to change. I do think it’s going to be another click than V6, because there’s more functionality, but we should be able to get everything in there. I don’t want to play with this until we know the correct solution because the code is spread across a lot of windows, which is a recipe for a lot of bugs and wasted time if we get it wrong.
Automatically selecting the vectors will not work because it would be impossible to apply new vectors that way (the new vectors would be unselected by default). I can see adding a button to select the vectors currently applied to this toolpath, which is wordy and awful as a label, but probably the right way to add the functionality back.
If we do that, there’s probably the opportunity to hide/disable the button if the selection in the same as the one in the toolpath currently. If we disable the button, we probably need to say why, which adds more words, and words are bad.
The other question is whether we should just use the selected vectors, assuming there are vectors selected, when creating a toolpath. That seems logical to me, but there’s a bit of magic in there and every time we add magic we fail hard.
I have seen this direction ruin other products in my past so it might have some emotional history for me 
