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mathcad worth it? 4

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wrantler

wrantler

Structural
Aug 19, 2022
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I have been using excel forever. It works for me...but I keep seeing these mathcad sheets and am intrigued by how easily laid out the sheets are. But then I seen the price of $700/year!

I guess I am looking for opinions on if it is worth the cost. These subscription licenses are making it hard for the little guy to make a business. I thought mathcad was a one time license for life..

On a side note has anyone used SMath? It seems like a free mathcad clone.
 
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I really like mathcad but its pretty expensive I feel unless your using all of the features regularly. I haven't started using SMath but it looks like a promising alternative.

Also I am pretty sure you can get a free version of Mathcad that has limited functionality and prints with a watermark. In the past my understanding was that you can use the free version for any purpose you like. However last time I got the trial the sales person told me (rather threateningly) that I was not allowed to use it for commercial or personal usage. For the record I was not able to locate this in the terms of use. I got a bad taste in my mouth from that interaction and stopped using it all together.
 
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Thanks all for the feedback. I think it makes sense to try SMath and then a trial with mathcad to see if any 'extra' features are worth it.

After looking at SMath it seems this should do for my purposes. And intensive crunching I will still use excel..but the simple equation pounding can be through this I think.

Blockpad seems like a possible mid ground?
 
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Mathcad Express is actually shockingly good and is free for life.

It can't do complex programming or solve equations but it's far more capable than I ever expected. I'm able to do most everything I did in V15 but in a different way. It's ironic as I was adamant I'd never use prime for a decade but now I'm content with the free version.

Stick with version 5 though because they added a water mark across the page from V6.
 
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Smath is great. Of course if Andrey gets conscripted and sent to Ukraine we're all in big trouble. Hazard of a free project - I doubt there's a succession plan.

dik has about a gazillion Smath programs/ sheets for all sorts of structural calculations.

It's free and no watermark. You can create custom page backgrounds (I made it look like my company Calc sheets), and a full WYSIWYG calculation engine. There's even ways to write rudimentary Structural analysis programs like a 2D beam FEM sheet.

 
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Of course if Andrey gets conscripted and sent to Ukraine we're all in big trouble. [lol]

You missed the happyface...

So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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A really good feature with SMath (or maybe not so good), it's easy to write new programs using 'cut and paste'. Biggest problem is keeping track of them all...

So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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I love using Mathcad - but only the OLD Mathcad.
I tried the new Prime and grew frustrated and could not bear the thousands of dollars it now costs.

So the only justifiable algebraic analysis program I use at work now is Smath. It's great for math but graphing is dreadful.
Others at work started using Smath so it's the de-facto standard now. Too late to adopt Mathcad, not even express.

I still preciously keep my MC version 13 running on my home computer for all the advantages it holds and especially the programming, graphing, and differential equations that it makes so easy. But you can't buy it, PTC doesn't support it, so I don't know why I'm even going on about it.
 
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For those of you who might care:
PTC Mathcad Prime - Two floating licenses on a server for one year will cost 3,750 USD quoted in 2021.
 
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I use SMath Studio even for quite complex calculations. It’s really powerful, especially with the Maxima plug-in which allows for more symbolic calculations. The only problem is that some unwelcome changes were made to the licensing. A free version is still available but requires registration, is limited to 5 devices per account, features only the basic version of SMath Viewer and asks you to upgrade.

As a 100% free (and open-source) alternative one may consider wxMaxima (GUI for the aforementioned solver). The problem is that it’s more like Mathematica and thus it doesn’t have such a user-friendly input of formulas (so you have to struggle with brackets like in Excel), doesn’t support units and so on.
 
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First, I am NOT a Mathcad user, so can't speak to the direct functionality of it, however...

At my last employer, I did a lot of the IT / computer troubleshooting, and I would say easily 50% of all problems were related to Mathcad (remainder which includes hardware, networking, and all other programs combined). Again, I am not a user, but worked daily with those who were, and at least a couple versions back, both before and after the transition to Prime was quite a buggy program, and the tech support was either non-existant, or had so many hoops to jump through for luke-warm assistance that it was a day in itself for less than stellar results.

Never used SMath, but they were in the process of seriously investigating alternatives when I left. That might have been one of them, can't say for sure.

Linking with clips from Autocad for some of the structural details was glitchy at best, and crashed more times than I could care to count. This was with multiple versions both of Mcad, and Acad, so it wasn't just one versions set of incompatibilities.

Hopefully we were in the minority, I would hate to think that a program like that couldn't do any better. Fingers crossed that your mileage with it runs better.
 
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Jus switched to a new computer, and it was scary not being able to get M14 running, but eventually, it got itself righted, so great! M14's graphing is marginally better than SMath's, I think. Regardless, I use Excel for almost all my graphing needs, with, or without, M14.

It's unfortunate, but it appears all the loose copies of M13/M14/M15 appear to have dried up and nothing seems to be available on eBay anymore, which is a darned shame.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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Thanks all for the feedback here, I do appreciate it. I was not expecting so many stories/experiences/lessons learned.

One thing I find interesting is how many ppl like the visualization of the calculations in mathcad type suites (and beat up excel).

I actually find it very easy to visualize the calculations in excel with its color coding and using the 'trace' functions which highlights cells in the equations.







 
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I have a perpetual license for Mathcad 15 and a large investment in calculation sheets, some simple some quite extended. Nothing that Smath or BlockPad can't do but it is not worth it for me to convert them over. I also use Excel quite a bit and have found that the FormulaText function combined with lots of named ranges helps present the work for others to understand
 
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color coding and using the 'trace' functions which highlights cells in the equations.
Click to expand...

Those are just extra steps that aren't necessary in Mathcad, since the equation is on the page, and variables can be obviously named, and are on the page. No clicking, no tracing, no color coding necessary.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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