Not Happy

[NIC]

Hi

Been using Alibre for 4 months now, love the product. Went for the free version be quickly purchased a Pro license.
We are currently working on a project for which I need to show our customer a high quality rendering, started investigating solutions and then found out
the Expert version has keyshot and CAM (we are also getting a CNC)
So I contact the local agent, confirm I can get the upgrade, then purchase the upgrade license.

I assume it will activate within hours ... I'm wrong
I contact the dealer the next day , turns out I can't upgrade since I'm not under maintenance (this is new) , but they also want to charge me Expert maintenance I should be charged for Pro, as I was on pro before.
This is a mess, dealer explain his hands are tied ...
I was awaiting for resolution this morning (Friday US time) but no.

Now I'm not sure how Alibre handle their sales transaction with dealers, but whatever they have is place is broke !
Been in Australia the timzones are horrendous and I'm left waiting 24 hours at every step. They really should have a afterhours service line for their dealers to call.

My mistake was to promise I could deliver a render of the already completed CAD design, I thought 2 days would be enough
It seems I won't get any progress till Tuesday (Australia) and look like a fool to our customer

Nic

 

[jhardy1]

While you are waiting for Alibre to sort things out with your upgrade to Expert, you could try downloading the free trial of SimLab Composer http://www.simlab-soft.com/3d-products/ ... -main.aspx and requesting a Trial licence. You might even conclude that SimLab is good enough for your requirements, and it is very good value (US$149 world-wide pricing) until end of May.

Hope this helps!

 

[DavidJ]

Though maybe not widely publicised as such, the upgrade prices are for those on current maintenance - I don't think this is a new requirement.

Keyshot Web which ships with Expert these days is nice to use, but very limited resolution available on the image, it costs quite a lot to upgrade to the HD or Pro versions. Simlab as mentioned by jhardy does not limit the resolution, it is also easy to use (to me it currently looks better value). The features aren't quite identical - so the the answer of which package is best may be different for you.

Don't expect much from the CAM which ships with Expert - it is very much a feature limited 'taster'.

 

[Ralf]

Hi Nic,

In this case are always two options and each Reseller can offer these options to customers.
I'm sure my colleague from of Australia offered the possibilities.

Alibre Pro customer -> would like to upgrade to Expert:

- Pro Customer -> with active maintenance -> Expert upgrade price with 1 year maintenance...
- "Retired" Pro customer -> without active maintenance -> Expert upgrade price with 1 year maintenance...

- Which type of upgrade you have ordered, and what type of payment you have chosen?

I can assure you 100% :!:
The duration time of all our Reseller orders from Alibre Inc.-> here in Germany -> less than 10 Minutes. ( Greetings and thanks to Jonathan )
Of course we have a "small supply" in our stock, therefore, no problems arise from the time difference.

 

[NateLiquidGravity]

You don't need to purchase a renderer through your Alibre reseller at all. You can purchase them independently from their producers.

 

[NIC]

Thanks for all your replies, the dealer did get my upgrade underway, I'm now waiting for the Keyshot license.

I had a look at SimLab, it's nice, the material library is too small for my taste, yes you can create your own but most of the time we use standard materials and really do;t have time to add them in.
They tell me a new version is coming with a community approach to sharing textures, I might check it out then

I relaise the cam is basic, but there doesn't seem to be anything else out there that has such integration with Alibre, I can cross from one to another in seconds. Much better than having to regenerate a STP and re importing.
During our design phase we always like to keep track for CAM estimated run times and make sure we are keeping things tight ..

Thanks

Nic

 

[craneaero]

Regarding Simlab.
I would recommend that you try out the sample 3D pdf files on their website before thinking of buying.
I tried one and it sent my graphics card into orbit (nvidia geforce 9600).
Alibre 3D pdfs are much more stable in my opinion.

Update:
After a pretty rapid response from someone at Simlab, I have tried downloading the 3D pdf to the desktop and opening the file from there.
Everything seems to work fine now.
I will have another look at the program, which certainly seems to have responsive product support.

 

[MikeHenry]

I relaise the cam is basic, but there doesn't seem to be anything else out there that has such integration with Alibre, I can cross from one to another in seconds. Much better than having to regenerate a STP and re importing.
During our design phase we always like to keep track for CAM estimated run times and make sure we are keeping things tight ..

Another CAM option is SprutCAM. It has an add-on that lets you transfer a part file directly from Alibre to SprutCAM but SprutCAM won't see any subsequent changes the way AlibreCAM does.

Mike