Hello. I am new to the forum. I am working as a CNC operator and the other machinists around me are using this software called MasterCam 10, which I find amazing. They tell me during conversation about the significant cost of the software, which I find steep! They also tell of a thing called a "service fee" levied on the shop annually by MasterCam to use its software.

  I am rather new to using software - in fact, this is the first time that I've seen it used on the shop floor. Call me backward but I've worked only as an operator in the past.

  I have some wonders about the software that I hope another reader of this blog can clarify for me.

  Can software for CAD like that stuff be sold on the second-hand market, such as in the classified listings of a trade publication like MMS or some other?? Or would the licensing agreement prohibit it from leaving the hands of the purchaser to which the software writers sold it?

  If one purchases a CAM software such as MasterCam, wouldn't the purchase price be enough to use the software?? I know that it is nice stuff, but the numbers being presented to me for annual cost of using it I see as rather absorbitant! OK, so the writers of the software update it every so often, but why should they charge such a steep fee every year for using it!? 

  I suppose that it would save time and money using the software, but I would assume that the shop would have to have some rather high numbers of production volume for it to be profitable, yes? I mean, the "onesies and twosies" in lot size wouldn't be very profitable if a programmer had to use such advanced software to write a program to machine a half dozen parts or less, ya know? 

  Why not just use the ol' Warner and Swazey or Bridgeport to pump out the six parts and ship them instead of writing a program with the software and doing the set-up on an advanced CNC lathe or mill-drill for that little volume??

  I hope I will get responses and opinions from many different corners of the machining-engineering world with this posting and help me to shed some light on this darkness I have toward the CAD software. Thanks, and safe and happy machining!

Steve