DaisyChain
Plastic
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2023
For those of you considering purchasing Esprit, please take a moment to read our review.
We've had EspritCAM for a little over 2 years now, so I feel licensed to give a fairly decent review of its capabilities, support, reliability, service and overall value.
We initially bought Esprit because a Mastercam reseller was unsure if he could provide a post out of the box. Having watched Peter Stand's youtube channel "Edge Precision'', I thought Esprit might be a good option. We called their sales team and they assured us that they could provide a good post, "out of the box, ready to go". Their pricing was a bit of a shocker though. For a 3+2 seat with mill-turn capabilities and posts for 5 machines, our out-the-door pricing after discounts was around $40K. I learned later when I purchased two more posts for two used Moris (one 3 axis mill, one 2 aXIS LATHE) and we paid another $6K that they typically charge $1000 per axis for posts. This is in stark contrast to the Mastercam team who will give away posts for free if they have already been developed. When I complained about Esprit's pricing, their region sales manager, Kash Budd-Felix, bragged about how they were the "Ferrarri of CAM software packages'' and how big shops everywhere were switching from NX-CAM to Esprit simply because of how good their posts are.
All CAM software packages essentially do the same things. Some are more user friendly, intuitive, reliable and powerful than others.
Esprit scores an average score for intuitiveness and user friendly. Having migrated from Mastercam, Esprit came with a bit of a learning curve. As a feature based software, you can't simply select geometry and create an associated toolpath; before you create a toolpath, you first have to create the feature associated with that geometry. It's an extra step. Once you shift your thinking, it becomes easier to understand. Unequivocally though, because you are required to create features, the software is inherently slower than mastercam by at least 30%. So, keep this in mind if speed is your shop's differentiator.
When it comes to the software's capability, Esprit scores about as well as mastercam. I will say that mastercam has more options when it comes to complex toolpaths. And beyond that, the paths that Mastercam generates are more configurable. As a HMLV job shop, shaving seconds off toolpaths doesn't do much for us though, so this wasn't too much of a problem. We also prefer the simplicity of Esprits paths over mastercams
Where esprit really shines is how well it can be set up to run particular machines like Mill-Turns and complex 5 axis systems.......In theory. When Esprit is working, for these types of machines, it is undeniably phenomenal. Unfortunately though, this has not been our experience. This is because Esprit's ability to be configured for a machine is directly tied to the reliability and accuracy of the post processor. If the machine is modeled incorrectly, Esprit won't be able to simulate cutting and potential crashes reliably. Furthermore, if the post is not configured correctly for the machine's controller, the g code might send your spindle into the part. It might simulate correctly in Esprit, but crash at the machine.
Which is what happened to us.
This brings us to service. Esprit charges a MASSIVE $5000 annual service and maintenance fee for their software. For perspective, Autodesk's Featurecam costs a total of $5000 per year for the software and maintenance. If you opt to pay this service fee, you have access to their software upgrades and their tech support team. But in our experience, this tech support team is very difficult to reach and struggles with providing even the most basic support, especially when it comes to issues with their machine posts. This last point is critical because, for us, not one of their posts worked initially. They all had to be reconfigured to some extent and for most of them, we still manually edit some of our code. For one of the machines, esprit still has not provided a working post. Their sales team will promise the world, but in reality, the only way to get a working post is to iterate with their difficult-to-reach techs and, through trial and error, arrive at a working configuration. But this is almost impossible. Esprit techs do not follow through. They will ghost you and then quietly close your case weeks later and pretend that internally the issue has been resolved.
For a company that so arrogantly markets themselves as the Ferrari of post builders, they do a terrible job supplying a post that works. Their tech support is unresponsive, unknowledgeable and will ghost you if you don't repeatedly badger them.
Which is why we just purchased another seat of Mastercam.
We've had EspritCAM for a little over 2 years now, so I feel licensed to give a fairly decent review of its capabilities, support, reliability, service and overall value.
We initially bought Esprit because a Mastercam reseller was unsure if he could provide a post out of the box. Having watched Peter Stand's youtube channel "Edge Precision'', I thought Esprit might be a good option. We called their sales team and they assured us that they could provide a good post, "out of the box, ready to go". Their pricing was a bit of a shocker though. For a 3+2 seat with mill-turn capabilities and posts for 5 machines, our out-the-door pricing after discounts was around $40K. I learned later when I purchased two more posts for two used Moris (one 3 axis mill, one 2 aXIS LATHE) and we paid another $6K that they typically charge $1000 per axis for posts. This is in stark contrast to the Mastercam team who will give away posts for free if they have already been developed. When I complained about Esprit's pricing, their region sales manager, Kash Budd-Felix, bragged about how they were the "Ferrarri of CAM software packages'' and how big shops everywhere were switching from NX-CAM to Esprit simply because of how good their posts are.
All CAM software packages essentially do the same things. Some are more user friendly, intuitive, reliable and powerful than others.
Esprit scores an average score for intuitiveness and user friendly. Having migrated from Mastercam, Esprit came with a bit of a learning curve. As a feature based software, you can't simply select geometry and create an associated toolpath; before you create a toolpath, you first have to create the feature associated with that geometry. It's an extra step. Once you shift your thinking, it becomes easier to understand. Unequivocally though, because you are required to create features, the software is inherently slower than mastercam by at least 30%. So, keep this in mind if speed is your shop's differentiator.
When it comes to the software's capability, Esprit scores about as well as mastercam. I will say that mastercam has more options when it comes to complex toolpaths. And beyond that, the paths that Mastercam generates are more configurable. As a HMLV job shop, shaving seconds off toolpaths doesn't do much for us though, so this wasn't too much of a problem. We also prefer the simplicity of Esprits paths over mastercams
Where esprit really shines is how well it can be set up to run particular machines like Mill-Turns and complex 5 axis systems.......In theory. When Esprit is working, for these types of machines, it is undeniably phenomenal. Unfortunately though, this has not been our experience. This is because Esprit's ability to be configured for a machine is directly tied to the reliability and accuracy of the post processor. If the machine is modeled incorrectly, Esprit won't be able to simulate cutting and potential crashes reliably. Furthermore, if the post is not configured correctly for the machine's controller, the g code might send your spindle into the part. It might simulate correctly in Esprit, but crash at the machine.
Which is what happened to us.
This brings us to service. Esprit charges a MASSIVE $5000 annual service and maintenance fee for their software. For perspective, Autodesk's Featurecam costs a total of $5000 per year for the software and maintenance. If you opt to pay this service fee, you have access to their software upgrades and their tech support team. But in our experience, this tech support team is very difficult to reach and struggles with providing even the most basic support, especially when it comes to issues with their machine posts. This last point is critical because, for us, not one of their posts worked initially. They all had to be reconfigured to some extent and for most of them, we still manually edit some of our code. For one of the machines, esprit still has not provided a working post. Their sales team will promise the world, but in reality, the only way to get a working post is to iterate with their difficult-to-reach techs and, through trial and error, arrive at a working configuration. But this is almost impossible. Esprit techs do not follow through. They will ghost you and then quietly close your case weeks later and pretend that internally the issue has been resolved.
For a company that so arrogantly markets themselves as the Ferrari of post builders, they do a terrible job supplying a post that works. Their tech support is unresponsive, unknowledgeable and will ghost you if you don't repeatedly badger them.
Which is why we just purchased another seat of Mastercam.
Last edited:
