Yes Folks, ZW3D 2012 is HERE

So I download the RTM version of ZW3D yesterday and I find some things of interest. First and most exciting for me is the long-awaited release of lathe for cam.

We see in the first screen capture the pretty new lathe icons in the cam plan section.

There is however a minor problem with this. In order for this to be of any use there has to be a way to communicate with your cnc lathe of choice. The following two screen captures are of all the machine posts that come with ZW.

and

Perhaps I am missing something but there is not one lathe post in here. So you see it is hardly a noteworthy new feature to claim, as ZW does in their new release statements, when it is not useable for anyone anywhere unless they can write their own posts. They did a rather remarkable thing here and one I have never seen anywhere else. Rather than hire a third-party post writer to do what they could not do they just stuck lathe in there and told all their customers who thought they were going to have something to go fly a kite. Perhaps I am being presumptuous here when I say they can’t write their own machine posts. Maybe the ability is there and what the truth is is that they just don’t care if what you buy is useable. I don’t know what the problem is I just know what they had the audacity to release 2012 lathe as though something wonderful had been accomplished.

However there is hope for the frustrated ZW3D user here in the Western Hemisphere!

http://www.zwsoft.com/en/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=lists&catid=171

You can’t make this stuff up and I have posted the link so you can see for yourself. THREE BUSINESS DAY GUARANTEE, yes that’s right, three days before you hear back from support is their buyer support promise to you. Live chat is not available to us during our business hours because it is nightime there in China support land. Not that live chat would have helped anyway.  But in the middle of the sleepless night as you ponder how to get your work done and waiting on answers you can perhaps while away the time in friendly communication with Ms Robot Q.

No live tech support unless your VAR is willing to help and if he has no answer then it is VAR + three days X how many times to get an answer. Of course I can see the following happening with great regularity. You have a problem and a part on the mill and you are going nowhere until tech support provides an answer. So you email and wait for three days. This was on Monday and so now you have your reply on Wednesday. There is a further question about the problem you are having and now you are into three more days. Oopsy woopsy, now it will be Monday before you have that answer if indeed that just does not mean another email cycle begins anew. I thought the days of the Pony Express being the fastest method of communication were over some time ago but I have cause to reconsider that here. Maybe three days is their worst case scenario but they picked the number didn’t they and thought that was good enough and the heck with live tech support that had been available here in the USA from day one before VX was bought out.

I am not going to talk about direct editing they claim to have because it is by far the worst attempt at this I have ever seen. I will not make any further attempts to get it to do anything, it’s just not worth the aggravation and escalating blood preasure.

About all I can think of to say as I sit here laughing at this stuff and pondering my money pissed down the drain is——-

Rah Rah Sis Boom Bah

ZW ZW HA HA HA

I am seriously thinking that if they don’t give me a refund based on what I was promised not being there I may have a contest. Now if this is of interest to any of you start thinking of your entry. The contest will be you win a ZW3D 2012 dongle if you come up with the best use for a useless dongle.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE   3-1-2012

For those of you who have bought or did buy and are awaiting your dongle code. It appears that within two weeks after release of 2012 it should be ready so please overlook this inconvenience. I know you expected to be able to actually use your dongles when 2012 was released but ZW has been busy and I guess they though you would not mind. I wonder if this is the same group busy writing posts for lathe 😉

ANOTHER UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE 3-11-12

There was a thread posted on the ZW3D forums about  “synchronous like editing” from 12-5-09 where I was asked by Bob Fisher and a user to post some stuff I had done with SE Synch Tech. I did so and was promised return videos by Bob. Well he was prohibited from releasing videos and never did so. Last week when the ZW3D forums were sanitised of many critical comments while Bob was in China this thread was removed in it’s entirety. It appears that ZW3D management is painfully aware of how inept their version of Direct Editing is and just elected to remove the comparison from the forum. Now if they could just erase Solid Edge and the other direct editors from the web, EH!!!

3-17-12  HA HA HA, what goes around comes around.  Of course now that the Chinese are trying to launch their bought version of ZW3D as a  domestically produced program they are now worried that piracy may be a problem and have become a part of an SME advocacy group to protect among other things the fledgling domestic CADCAM software authors. Well guys to bad for you. You have allowed rampant piracy and theft of intellectual property so much that it is a part of your culture that will not be changed. So it is with great amusement that today I can state according to an email I recieved that ZW3D 2012 has been hacked and is available FOR FREE on various Chinese sites.