An Interview with Jon Banquer, "Enfant Terrible" of CAD/CAM

Jon Banquer is well known in the CAD/CAM community for his daily presence on some of the most popular newsgroups. According to Google Groups, Jon wrote a total of 6,267 posts on the Usenet newsgroups since he began posting in June 1999.  See Jon's old-profile and current-profile.  (The King of CAD/CAM Usenet groups is a guy posting as Cliff with a total of 102,027 contributions.) Jon is strongly opinionated about almost everything related to CAD and CAM, leaving comments on several forums and many blogs. His style is direct, sometimes very explicit, but always honest. His uncompromising and compulsive attitude has made him a sort of "enfant terrible" of the CAD/CAM world: he has been blacklisted on several blogs and forums, and his comments are frequently deleted (some even from the Novedge blog). In order to unveil the real person under the unstoppable torrent of posts and to get a summary of his opinions without reading all six thousand newsgroups' contributions, I asked Jon a few questions.

Jon, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional activities?

I currently work in a machining job shop in San Diego, California. We manufacture an extensive product line of after market automotive and motorcycle parts and offer our machining and design services to others as well. Currently I spend most of my time supporting our new horizontal machining center which has 11 pallets and is capable of unattended lights out machining. We make use of modular vises and the owner's custom designed vise jaws which are placed on tombstones.

You are a constant presence on several newsgroups. As a professional CAD/CAM user what are the benefits of being part of a user community?

no one has been able to create a moderated web forum where to read the real truth about a CAD/CAM products weaknesses

The benefit to being part of alt.machines.cnc or comp.cad.solidworks is that they are unmoderated Usenet groups. So far no one has been able to create a moderated web forum where you're going to be able to read to real truth about a CAD/CAM products weaknesses... and all CAD/CAM products have major weaknesses. The Unmoderated Usenet format has it's problems though as you have what amount to Internet stalkers and you have to ignore a lot of off topic nonsense. I hope one day a moderated web forum is setup that is run by those who are experienced enough with CAD/CAM to understand why users have a right to be so angry and let them express that anger. So far almost all the moderated web boards that have been setup are heavily censored and you don't get to read the real truth about a CAD/CAM product. In addition, some web boards are setup with the main focus on making money on advertisers. This type of web board doesn't want posters offending those precious advertisers so when you tell the truth about a product your comments end up being censored or deleted. Usenet doesn't have that drawback and that's very important to someone like me.

Online training and training DVDs are becoming more and more popular, replacing training classes. What is your opinion on this evolution?

what's needed is high quality video training that covers advanced subjects in depth

The way most successful CAD/CAM product have traditionally been sold is to use a VAR network. This has it's good and it's bad points. The good point is that it really helps a software manufacturer sell more product. The bad is that software manufactures need a way to keep their VAR's making money and this means that the documentation that comes with a software product is most often inadequate and very poorly done. If you want quality training you must fork over big bucks to the software manufacturer's VAR to get the proper training. This means taking off work and spending the day(s) at the VAR's offices. This simply doesn't work for many of us. I believe what's needed is high quality video training that covers advanced subjects in depth. I don't believe software manufactures will ever offer this. I do believe it represents a tremendous opportunity for expert CAD/CAM software users who want to start their own business and make good money showing others what they painstakingly have learned... often by trail and error or through years of experience at the school of hard knocks.

Blogs, newsgroups, forums, and mailing lists can provide a lot of feedback to software manufacturers. Are they listening to the users?

Great! An easy question with a simple answer: Absolutely not.

Which of the several innovations introduced by CAD/CAM systems have the strongest impact on the end-user? Which one would you say has a marginal impact on your daily activities?

the division between design engineers and manufacturing people is probably greater than it ever has been

Machining job shops often have to work with non-native data. High level tools for modifying a “dumb” solid will have a strong impact because Feature Recognition and editing a history tree take way too much time. Machining job shops have been hard hit by the Chinese. Most successful machining job shops are run way too lean so they can make a profit for their owners. The lack of talented labor as well as just having enough labor will continue to be a major problem for machining job shops. Also, it needs to be easier to create tool-path on solid models. Having to extract wire-frame geometry from the solid model seems like a major waste of time to me.
Things like-real time rendering have a marginal impact for me but I can understand why others need better and easier rendering. It's too bad most engineers and many software manufactures could careless about the tools that hands-on manufacturing people really need especially when I'm sensitive to the tools they need.
The division between design engineers and hands on manufacturing people (those who know how to use their hands and can actually make something) is probably greater than it ever has been despite the advances in technology.

Based on your experience, can you give new users some recommendations on how to choose a CAD/CAM software?

(when choosing a CAD/CAM) you had better do your homework and know what compromises you will have to make

Very, very carefully. You had better do your homework and know what compromises you will have to make. Suggest new users make use of Usenet and discover what users in an uncensored format really think of the software they're thinking of purchasing.

I would like to thank Jon Banquer for accepting my challenge of being interviewed for this blog. If you have any questions for Jon or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

UPDATE -- July 8, 2007 -- I had to close this blog post to further comments and to remove the personal attacks between Jon and some other newsgroups readers. Before the interview, I made an agreement with Jon about the style of the interview and the way to handle it. Jon didn’t respect our agreement, posting comments under fake names. Jon’s authentic and fake comments are all posted from the same IP address, 72.199.251.224. I can now see that my trust in Jon was misplaced.

Comments

[Ted (aka Smallshop on the PM forum)]

Well Jon.....I'll bet mr. Folini is kicking himself about now.....Many of us who supported your "right" to be heard(As I did on the PM forum) because of your interest and knowledge in CAD/CAM slowly learned (because of your craving for down and dirty fighting)that our support was misplaced.I do regret supporting you. Here's a little truism you can take to the bank...."where Jon is strife abounds". Maybe some form of counseling will help you discover why that seems to be the case.

...........

Franco, you've been snookered.....don't feel like the lone Ranger though.......

It is interesting that Jon's reply to the Joe Anand interview(below) is to imply that every other person you've interviewed is unethical and that while he appreciates Joe's ethics his software isn't quite up to the task.....A negative and...a negative...surprise,surprise....

Jon's quote:"The CADCAM business is filled with unethical people.
Joe Anand is the exception to the rule. I can't wait to see the progress in Visual Mill 6 and RhinoCAM 2 as I would sure like to have a legitimate alternative to GibbsCAM and MasterCAM."

It is also interesting that every other person you've interviewed actually has CREATED something rather than just being a self appointed gadfly rushing in to protect us slow-witted CAD/CAM consumers from the wily clutches of the evil intentioned CAD/CAM MFGs.

If you were looking to increase your blog traffic you chose rather low hanging fruit.
Pandering to a person's noteriety will attract a crowd much like an automobile accident.....the crowd will disappear when the wreck does.

My apologies if I am infering intent that wasn't there.

Ted

[Dom]

I'm not a big contributor to the usenet, but I always troll the forums, looking for something interesting, or that will teach me something. In all the time I've been reading the usenet, Jon hasn't been a stand out contributor in terms of value. In fact, I've found his contributions detract from the value of usenet. Why is he being lauded on this blog as an expert? There are at least a dozen others that I can instantly think I'd rather read an interview from. When you read thier posts, its clear that they are sincere, knowledgable and honest. Jon's activity casts such enormous doubt over himself, that I rarely follow anything he has to say. Same goes for "The king of CADCAM"; Cliff.

These remarks are not intended to be personal, just an honest observation of how proliferation on the usenet is not necessarily a good thing. People want variety. This is where new ideas come from, a large group all sharing experiences and ideas.

[Joe 788]

It should be noted that Jon Banquer's opinions on any CAD/CAM product are about as useful as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. He literally CAN NOT use even the most basic functions of any CAD/CAM system. Notice his comment above about extracting wireframe geometry from solids. This is because he can't figure out how to properly select a chain in Mastercam.

He won't ask for help when he can't figure something out. He'll just decide that the program can't do what he expects, followed by an internet wide Jihad against whatever program he's using at whatever job he has that month.

Just ask him how he selects chains in Mastercam, then sit back and watch the insanity!

[BottleBob]

To All:

Let's try to take an objective look at some of Jon's comments in this article, and leave personalities out of it.

#1 "...and all CAD/CAM products have major weaknesses."
BB comments: Does anyone really doubt this, or think a particular CAD/CAM system is perfect?

#2 "In addition, some web boards are setup with the main focus on making money on advertisers. This type of web board doesn't want posters offending those precious advertisers so when you tell the truth about a product your comments end up being censored or deleted."
BB comments: Is it unreasonable to assume that the threat of withdrawing advertising resources may have a censoring effect on posting content?

#3 "If you want quality training you must fork over big bucks to the software manufacturer's VAR to get the proper training."
BB comments: Is it reasonable to assume that some VAR's view training as a cash cow?

#3 "Machining job shops often have to work with non-native data."
BB comments; I think most people/shops that do varied work from multiple customers can see the value of having adequate & current translation tools.

BB's conclusion: Jon made some pretty general comments that were fairly non-confrontational and ring true for the job-shops that I'm aware of.

--
BottleBob
http://home.earthlink.net/~bottlbob

[William Old]

Bill, even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.

[Vulcan]

We worked with Jon Banquer when he lived in Arizona. His support and help on Featurecam was great. We would hire him back if he decided to move back to Arizona. If anyone has any questions on Jons knowledge of CAD or CAM give us a call at Vulcan Industries and we would be glad to tell you what Jon did for us. From SolidWorks to FeatureCAM Jon is excellent.

[Bill Young]

I remember reading Jon's comments on how bad Onecnc was. After spending thousands of dollars on Onecnc I was very angry to see Jon put this product down. Well a year later it turns out Jon Banquer is right about Onecnc. I should have never purchased Onecnc and should have gotten something else.

[Jerry]

Jon Banquer is a breath of fresh air in a smog filled world. Not only is he very talented at CADCAM but he is always willing to help when I e-mail him with problems I have.

[brewertr]

Jon says; "I currently work in a machining job shop in San Diego, California."

Jon likes to post about his NEW job in San Diego.

One statement is that they use MasterCAM but can't post good reliable G-Code so Jon uses NC-Plot to verify the code they generate with MasterCAM.

Jon also stated it is not a high priority for him to make a quick and simple fix to the MasterCAM postprocessor so he can produce good reliable G-Code.

Jon then goes on in the same thread to compare Vericut with NC-Plot.

Kind of surprised none of this stuff came up in your in-depth interview. (sarcasm)

I do like your title "Enfant Terrible" though. Jon doesn't seem to know the meaning, he is now posting this link in his signature.

Tom

[Jeff]

PV: "it's not that the software is necessarily difficult to use, it's that it's not easy to figger out"

If you can't figure it out (through design, UI or documentation) it's not easy to use. Anyone that intentionally and continually designs, packages and sells software in such a way doesn't have long for this business world, at least in the small and mid-range marketplace, where, as you say, 'things gotta get done'. There is a difference between planned obsolescence and intentional bewilderment.

[Mr. PV'd]

Despite the above consensus, I think this interview is a lot more useful than the CEO-jivetalk that is most often featured here.

And, it sure beat jb's borderline-incoherent rants on Usenet.

Despite the other comment on "cadcam made difficult", it's not that the software is necessarily difficult to use, it's that it's not easy to figger out, thus the (conspired?) utility of VAR.

Of course, what you don't realize in the *sales pitch* is the figgering-out difficulty part, you whine and moan about it when you do realize it, but then perhaps forgive-forget when yer friendly VAR *sells you* "the answers".
Reasonably, of course.
Or mebbe not!

Most shops *are* under the gun, gotta move on, and really can't afford to switch midstream.
Basically, it's friendly extortion.

The learning curve is suff'ly steep on all cadcam that once a vendor "gets you", he has you by the shorthairs pert near forever.

[Steve]

Novedge just lost a lot or credibility by giving this guy *any* say in their space.

You delete some of his comments from your own blog, yet devote an entire entry to him, feeding this little man's ego giving him hope that his tirades somehow mean something.

[Jeff]

To suggest that software vendors make software intentionally difficult to use to drive training business is insane and shows the total lack of understanding of software development of the person holding that view. Difficult-to-use software doesn't get implemented, doesn't promote repeat business, doesn't promote referal business and doesn't promote software maintenance agreement renewals. Who would do that intentionally?

[Ricardo]

"Thanks for feeding this troll."

I couldn't put it better. He is now sprading this all around and picking fights where he hadn't shown for long time... PITA.

[none]

Thanks for feeding this troll.