I’m curious to know how many members here, machine for a living and if so, does your employer use Autodesk products? I know around the Albuquerque, NM area MasterCam is number 1 and GibbsCam a solid second. This is mostly due to the popularity and the fact they had sales reps in town and at the local Community college.
I use a variety of CAM software because I’m lucky enough to machine for the gov. and they have a bigger budget than most mom n pop job shops.
Whats being used around your town?
Hi Marcus,
I machine for a living. Small job shop that aids the local manufacturing sector. Varies quite a bit here in lower mid Michigan. They use SolidWorks, SolidEdge, AutoCad, and stolen copies of MasterCam and even BobCam. I use SurfCam by Vero Software, legit, that I pay for, 
Their support team is fantastic here.
I like that Titan utilizes the Autodesk and then teaches it very very well. It really helps upcoming machinists and tool makers alike. If I wasn’t already using SurfCam, I would be all over this site and using Autodesk exclusively, :)!
Jason M. Stych
Owner-BASIS Machining LLC
www.basismachining.com
Hi Marcus,
I work in a 30 man job shop in the Northeast. I do all the Cad/Cam work and the programming for the milling department. We use Solidworks and MasterCam for Solidworks.
Nice! so it seems like integrated cam is taking over. I love surfcam one of the originals. I’m in the same boat. while i enjoy messing with fusion, I feel you hit the button on the head. Its a great place to get your feet wet and have sucess. I learned to program on Mastercam V9, I’ll admit if this was around in my first days, I would of made more money back then!
I am a one msn shop I make tooling and machine parts. I have used Bob-cad seance 17, 20 and 23 are the latest I have own. I own Edge-cam seance 9. I have a current pade licence & maintenance for it. From my understanding that Surfcam is Edgecam now.
I also have Fusion 360 and thanks to Titans Academy I can use It the best. For the money Fusion is the way to go for me. I use it to make parts in my shop Sherwood Machining &Tooling.
Been around at a few shops over the years most are using MasterCam and would say its a strong #1. Yet Autodesk Inventor is a close #2. Then putting Surfcam at #3 for sure.
I work as an industrial freelancer in Brooklyn, NY now, trying to pivot to owning my own custom machine and fabrication shop. But have been a supervising and lead machinist at a couple places along the way.
Graduated from Corning Community College in Upstate NY in 2005, we were taught AutoCAD and MasterCAM. From there, working for various shops Upstate, I ran into Prototrak a lot, no need for fancy machinery 90% of the time when you’re working in a custom shop making one-offs. Then when I moved to NYC my Brooklyn Navy Yard employer used SolidWorks and SolidCAM, which I grew to like. I prefer SolidWorks as my drafting software at this point. Lately I’ve been getting into Fusion 360 and Onshape, the cloud-computing and collaboration tools can be really powerful. In a machining class that I taught at the Brooklyn Army Terminal I got to know Fusion 360’s CAM module and I gotta say, I was impressed with what it offered. On its face it looks rudimentary but has a lot under the hood, for a free package in education it’s been invaluable. For high-level machining MasterCAM still rules.
MasterCam is hard to beat especially to me easy to draw quick parts on while running other parts. Yet also SurfCam is right there with it on easy of use, and power in high-level machining, too. Both have their strengths hands down, but since learning Inventor I can program parts 10 times faster. Plus I picked it up way easier, but I have a lot more experience now in my career too.
I’m new to this forum, but yeah, I see that Titan uses Inventor too. Ten times faster is a big claim! But I can’t say since I’ve never used it, I’m going to have to check it out. 
I’ve worked at two shops in the last ten years (NE Ohio), and they both use GibbsCam. The first had Milltronics machines with Centurion conversational programming. This handled 95% of our programming needs. Unfortunately, I don’t think they ever utilized Gibbs to it’s fullest extent.
My current shop uses Gibbs, but only for lathe programs. All mill programs (my department) are written at the machine. Not sure why they do it this way, but I enjoy writing programs, so I’m not complaining.
On a slightly different topic, how do you use Autodesk through the Titans of CNC Academy site? I have attempted several times to download Autodesk, which is supposed to be free for educational purposes. When I followed the link from the Titan site (and filled out the necessary info on the Autodesk site), it tells me that Titans of CNC Academy is not a recognized educational institution.
Apologies for getting a little off-topic, but I’m asking here because it seems some of you have already utilized Autodesk and some of Titan’s training classes. Any information you can share would be greatly appreciated, as I’m very interested in learning more in the CAD / CAM field. Thanks in advance!
Considering the 1M that’s taught by Titan, he’s using AutoDesk’s Fusion 360 in his tutorial.
Follow the link to download the software, just go for the free trial to begin. Once you’ve installed Fusion 360 on your computer and have opened the software, you’re name and account information will be at the top right of the window. Next to it you should see the trial term period, hover over it, this is where you can select the education license – you shouldn’t need to select an educational institution in my recollection. Once you’re good there you’re off to the races, Titan provides the rest.
Happy to answer questions!
Both of my machine shops use MasterCam
we do 5-axis cylinder head porting; MasterCam’s “Port Expert” add-on makes it easier ,