What has happened here?

This is a bit of a rant, and I apologize in advance.

I used to be very involved in the forums here, and they were invaluable when it came to the learning curve
for everything from assembling the machine to fine-tuning my use of it. I would hazard a guess that there are few people on these forums with as many hours in Easel as i have. Easel has yet to outgrow its usefulness for me as it has for others. I have never generated a toolpath or sent Gcode using any other software. So much so that I was actually approached at one time to do some promotional stuff for the company.

I am guilty of straying from the forums in recent months as I have a new baby, and i keep my machine running so much that I’m not really able to devote the time i used to.

Fast forward a few months, and so much has changed. The regular and welcomed interaction from both Inventables employees and some wily veterans don’t seem to be here anymore. Some of said veterans are conspicuously absent. I can assume that the machines are still selling, from the amount of rookie questions i have seen posted.

The 500mm Machine costs as much as my 1000mm did two years ago. cost of materials fluctuates and such, a given in any market. i can’t help but feel like the stink that was stirred up with the release of Pro turned some people off. i wasn’t very supportive of it at the time, though I’m guilty of using a few of my free days.

But the forum is what sold me on the machine. i had a lot of time here and in easel even before i ordered my machine. The Customer Experience emphasis seems to be dramatically lower, and there are people on here that are posting basic questions asking for help that are 32 days old and not even a cursory reply from a moderator, any tech people…

@Zach_Kaplan I feel like the heart and soul of the Xcarve community is having some palpitations… please let me know what, if anything, i can do to help.

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Hi @ChristopherLathan,

My name is Jessie and I work at Inventables. I really appreciate your input on the forum and I’m sorry to hear that’s it’s not what you thought it might be coming back from time off with your baby (congratulations, by the way!)

We did have a few members leave the forum and this happens from time to time. Previous members leave and new members come in. We’ve actually had a lot of growth in the last year!

As far as employees go, they do pop in when they’re able to, but they’re focused on their own daily work here at Inventables. For the most part, the community runs with X-Carve users helping other users, which is exactly how we want a community to work!

Definitely DM me if you have any other questions - I’d be happy to hop on a call next week to chat about any concerns or new ideas you might have. I love getting feedback on what you’d like to see on our community.

Thanks!
Jessie

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Hi ChrstopherLathan,

I purchased a used X-Carve about a month ago, and am in the process of getting it set up in the garage (meaning, making room for it, building a new table for it, etc.) Since I’m disabled, it’s going slow.

To first comment on your rant, my guess is that a lot of the people that were on here have moved over to the several Facebook X-Carve groups…which I think is part of my dilemma.

in the evenings, I’ve been trying to learn this CNC stuff & Easel. I’m a retired Electrical Engineer and learned a number of CAD and programming packages over the years, so although Easel doesn’t seam that difficult, it seams to have some “idiosyncrasies” and some “Tips & Tricks” I have yet to learn. After Googling a number of times, I have yet to find a “Glossary” or “Wiki” to define all of the commands in the pull-down menus and what they do. While I have searched this forum, Facebook groups, Youtube and the internet, more often than not I wind up reading or watching info that, even though I learn something, doesn’t answer my question but takes up an hour of my time. And I am hesitant to post in the Facebook groups, because most of the responses are “dump Easel for V-Carve, Aspire, Fusion 360”, or any number of responses that don’t answer my question…

So where do I go for help?

Thanks,
Mike

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I’m pretty much available all the time via message, and I’ll reply to any posts here that I see.

The forum isn’t dead, and I’m gonna try to breathe more life into it, too.

Easel was very intuitive for me, but I’d imagine that it might be counterintuitive to someone who has a background in old-school cad and the like.

There is a wealth of knowledge still available here, and I’m sorry if made it sound otherwise.

But again, I’m here if you need me. Thinking it’s about time I start contributing to the YouTube x-carve sphere too

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Also, I would be happy to help you get it set up and running. DM me if you need to

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Post here. Lots of willing people.

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HI @JessieFritz - I’m not trying to start something here, but I think your post is just a little disingenuous. Some of the long time SO and X-Carve regulars have been forced off the forums and some even banned. I don’t know what exactly happened, and I’m not interested in the details. But knowledge has been lost.

I personally found some of the people very helpful and their posts exceptionally useful when I was getting started. I know keeping a community alive and prosperous, and simultaneously positive is hard (especially when the same newbie questions are asked over and over again when google could answer the question), but the lack of updates to the platform, pushing for monetization of easel, and the general sense of no innovation around the x-carve has me wondering where the entire platform and community is going.

In all fairness, I see the same with the SO community too. No major upgrades or announcements in something like 2 years. There are a million community upgrades that could be folded into the platform, but have not. So I personally am left a little wanting. I don’t need a new machine - but I would love to lust over something new and impressive again.

0.02.

-Tom

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There’s knowledge being added on a daily basis as well. Don’t lose track of that while fixing on the past. :sunglasses:

Other than that, I couldn’t agree more with your concerns.
I think more community interaction could be beneficial for all. Like the challenges Inventables used to do.

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@ChristopherLathan I think you can see that many people are very will to help. I’m better with videos rather than trying to always answer here on the forum. You can go to my thread here and see a number of topics that may help you

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@PhillipLunsford

i understand that there are still good people here. i guess i was not clear as to what my concerns were.

will elaborate via DM