Have you guys had issues with the HASP4 key dying on you, rendering the Sprutcam investment null? I am just curious because mine died last year and I would like to know how common this is. I will be forced to upgrade to Sprutcam 9 in a very near future and it is going to pain me greatly to invest yet another big bundle of money on a SW that can viciously prank the heck out of me when I least expect it. When I spend such a large amount of money on SW I would expect it to last FOREVER, or until the OS no longer supports it (which is what ultimate should kill a SW release, anyway).

What is a HASP4 key? I had some problems with sprut 9 install and loss of drm settings 'drm= digital rights media'. After a great deal of study and review of the problem I found sprut had nothing to do with it.

When I upgraded sprut I was also in the process of upgrading gfx cards in my workstation. I installed the latest drivers after cards were installed and they in turn slammed my drm and caused a few other technical problems. I blamed sprut when the program had nothing to do with it.

Talk about chasing my tail for months trying to fix this blaming something that had nothing to do with it. I use and maintain high performance computer workstations and its very disconcerting when something is wrong and they are not performing perfectly. Long story short I installed or rolled back the drivers to a known driver that worked before and all my problems went away. As for software and how long it is supported or functions. I can make a few notes. First off you can run almost any old software in any new windows o.s.

GRZ Software makes CNC software for non-machinists. You can try our software for free for 30 days- no limitations! May 3, 2007 - I would appreciate any information on the relative merits of MeshCAM vs. Cut3D, especially real life experiences. Does Cut3D offer any real advantage o.

They have settings for backwards compatibility. A great example comes to mind! I use a program called Microsoft money to manage all my personal finance. The last version of this was sold well over ten years ago. And I have been using this same program an even older version for 20 years. I can safely say it is by far the most important software on any of my computers and it creates and modifies by far the most important file on all my systems That file has backups on every drive, usb stick and computer I have. Oh and it cost $25.00 dollars.

Go figure the best most used software I have is 15 years old and cost 25$. MD, the HASP4 is the license protection key.

It is the USB dongle. Doesn't Sprutcam 9 utilize this?

I think other names are Aladdin, Hardware Protection, etc. My key died last year and without the Key I can's start the SW. This is what I refer to having lost the SW which is unacceptable in my opinion as once you pay for the SW you should have a right to use it FOREVER. With this key protected SW, however, that is not the case. I do understand that SW programmers have a right to eat three meals a day and that looking for mechanisms to make us buy the SW on a regular basis is one way to achieve this goal. But I really do not fancy the idea of buying a CAM SW every 3 years when the one I had was working just fine.

I was reading that apparently these keys are being made in such a fashion that they do not last more than 2 or 3 years and once that happens we are hosed. That would be mega awesome if Sprutcam 9 does no longer relies in such a devious method of protection. Bevinp, I wish I was that lucky. My dongle is not recognized.

I have tried in 3 different computers, 3 different OS (Windows XP, W7 32bits, W7 64 bits) and fresh installs. At one point I also tried downloading the HASP4 Aladdin drivers directly from the manufacturer but that didn't work either. Psa Diagbox Patch. The file which is supposed to be in place in the License folder is there. I had seen this as a source for trouble, but in my case that's not it. I really think the dongle is fried! How did that happen?

When I start SC, it says the dongle is not present or is not recognized. Needless to say, it immediately closes. Like I said, the SW becomes unusable. Last year I did contact Tormach but there was already no way to replace the USB key. By then Sprutcam had already released Sprutcam 8 and 7 was no longer supported. Tormach was gracious enough to move me to a SW license for a year.

The year expires in 8 days. I have contacted them again and I can say that we are lucky these are very nice people and they treat their customers VERY well, but there is a limit to how many times I am going to get that license extended. So at the end, one way or another, I will have to buy Sprutcam 9 in a near future. What's going to happen, though, is that if they key dies in a couple of years, Sprutcam will be on either 10 or 11 and then I won't get a key replacement again. Like I said, I would expect to have this SW until the planet is hit by a meteor, Global Warming transforms Earth into a Venus like planet and everything melts, a solar flair with a massive EMP takes down every single form of solid state devices, or I no longer have a computer where I can install an OS which supports the SW for which I paid more than $1K to get one license.

Now, apparently I am the only unlucky folk here. When I posted the question I was expecting to see hordes of people saying 'YEAH! My blasted key died as well!' But that has not been the case. That gives me a femto-micronic form of hope.

Tormach is awesome for such things!!! That said when I purchased mill I figured I could get by with simple cam software. After review of a few of these I found it would be easy to spend the price of sprutcam on different programs and still not get the power offered by the one program. You use a 4th axis in your work and from my experience there is 0.0000 cam software out there that drives that for less then $3k. Made me bite bullet and pay to play. I figured I just spent 13k on mill and tools whats another $1k for something that transforms the mill from a paper weight into a awesome machine. Also it turns out to be a no brainer when you think lathe or other cnc tools.

Your investment in money, time and learning will pay off big time.. That's strange, I would think if the USB key was destroyed somehow (or in your case, just quit working), you should be able to RMA it to Tormach for a replacement. Yes, they would have to issue you a new license, but they have their old license back (although non-functional). I'm not sure of the details on their upgrade program, but can you upgrade to Sprut9 at a discount and send in your broken Sprut 8 USB key?Actually, I think the reason why I was so mega hosed is because Sprutcam 9 came out on January 2014 and my Sprutcam 7 key died in April 2014. Since my Sprutcam license was 2 versions behind, there was no way to take advantage of the upgrade program. There was also no way to get a new key.

It is one of those 'you are out of luck' kind of situations. You know, for the individuals out there making thousands of dollars on a couple of parts per project, having to cash out for a new license every couple of years is really not such a painful endeavor.

Yes, it is a nuance, but at least they can say 'Well, I have to spend another $1.25K so that I can make more $10K's here and there' Who wouldn't? Completely different to 'Well, I have to spend a new set of $1.25K so that I can continue using my machine to tinker here and there until I have to spend the next set of $1.25K.' I am just mentally preparing myself to melting some plastic which is already oozing out of my pocket, heh heh heh.

Tormach is awesome for such things!!! That said when I purchased mill I figured I could get by with simple cam software. After review of a few of these I found it would be easy to spend the price of sprutcam on different programs and still not get the power offered by the one program. You use a 4th axis in your work and from my experience there is 0.0000 cam software out there that drives that for less then $3k.

Made me bite bullet and pay to play. Language Patch Football Manager 2005 Free more. I figured I just spent 13k on mill and tools whats another $1k for something that transforms the mill from a paper weight into a awesome machine. Also it turns out to be a no brainer when you think lathe or other cnc tools. Your investment in money, time and learning will pay off big time..MD, same here! When I bought my mill, I bought Sprutcam immediately realizing that it was a fraction of what I had paid for my mill, even when I got mine used. The thing is I already paid it and now will have to pay it again, not to mention I will be using the SW with the fear in my guts of having to pay for it a third time. When the key decides to take a walk to Hades.

I do wish this 'pay off big time' was a little bit more accurate for me. It is my responsibility, though. I can't blame Sprutcam, Sprutcam America or Tormach for my first investment not paying off because this is not one of those things where you make money by having it stored in a safe. We are responsible of being creative and making something people will want to pay for.

Then the investment can pay off big time. I just have not been able to find that secret stash of parts where people go nuts, open up their wallet or empty their bank account while going zombie after seeing something that came out of my machine. In fact, 95% of what I have made have been done for FRIGGING FREE!!!!!!!

My fault again. This reminds me that time when I was in a rock band and our guitarist wanted to play so much he would pay the bar owner to let us play. Damn it, I really need to learn a lesson or two here.