Bobcad 17 Review

I've recently completed my first significant project in Bobcad 17.0 and
have to say it's a decent little package. For those of you considering
buying a modestly priced CAD package, and you need G-code, it might be
worth a look. Here's a review from a CAM novice's viewpoint.

I came from Autodesk's Quickcad (which is the "light" or "home" version of
their software). Quickcad is fairly intuitive to use if you're familiar
with most modern Windows applications. It's difficult, however, to do
really accurate work in Quickcad. In many cases, your accuracy is limited
by the mouse and zoom level. For laying out the floorplan to that shop you
want to build, this isn't a problem. For CAM work, it can be a serious
limitation.

Bobcad, on the other hand, let's you specify or move/trim/extend virtually
anything by exact X Y coordinates and it will support resolutions beyond
0.00001. This works much better for CAM work! Once you get the hang of it
(which took all of a few hours), the user interface is easy enough. It's a
little clunky in areas (for example they could have put the right mouse
button to good use) but it gets the job done. It even appears to be bug
free. Imagine, a Windows program without bugs! <snicker>

The installation has a serious flaw for some folks. At least on my system
(Win2k), it forces the install to the C drive. I have multiple logical
drives, and the C drive was NOT my first choice. There doesn't appear to
be any way around this. Forget installing it to a network drive, for
example. The install otherwise went smoothly.

As a drawing package, it's simple but effective. It appears to have
unlimited levels of undo (a good thing for this draftsman) and unlimited
layers. The zooming works well. You cannot do some simple things like
automatically draw a rectangle, but you can draw a new line parallel to an
old one (or tangent to an arc). The documentation is OK but not
great. Some things are a little weird until you know better--i.e. if you
print the drawing with certain elements selected, only those elements
print. I didn't see this in any of the docs or help files.

There are not a lot of options. There doesn't seem to be a snap grid. It
doesn't support fractional precision or advanced scaling. There's no built
in title block. There are very few page/print options. You can't pick
the arrow head style on dimensions, etc. On the plus side, it often does
exactly what you want it do even for the automated operations so the lack
of choices hasn't been a big problem for me (yet?).

The text function is weak. Considering most are going to use this package
for making parts, this shouldn't be a huge problem. It does dimensions
fairly well (at least if you like the way it does them) but other text
seems to be an afterthought (it's on the dimension tool bar). Once you
place text (which can be a trick to do neatly without a snap grid), I
haven't found any way to edit the text itself. If you're looking for a
package to do text engraving (nameplates, plaques, etc.), this isn't it.

Where it really shines is with the CAM features. It does automatic
radiusing, offsets, circular bolt patterns, fillets, chamfers, splines,
gears and more. If you need to make a pocket or unusual shape on a
surface, it has several canned routines (spirals, etc.) to help generate
the repetitive 3-D toolpath to perform such material removal easily. Most
of these automatically apply the tool radius and check for
interference. It's pretty slick and you're way ahead of using a non-CAM
friendly CAD package. I haven't explored the full 3-D or lathe
capabilities. The lathe support seems to be a simple "lathe mode on/off"
that performs some axis/coordinates translation.

The G-code generation works well enough. Once you get your drawing done,
you simply open the split NC window alongside your drawing, pick a tool,
reference a start point and you can either have it automatically generate
the G-code, or you can do it yourself one drawing element at a time. It
shows the toolpath superimposed on the drawing as you go with directional
arrows. You can back up, edit, re-order, things, etc. For a novice who
doesn't know G-code very well, it's great (even educational). For me, it's
far more straightforward than trying to use a translator
package--especially because if you need to change your drawing, it's right
there and you can edit anything.

You can set up Bobcad so it (hopefully) only produces G-code your machine
software can understand. This is done on a sort of "macro" level by
editing the G-code for various functions (i.e. so activating the coolant
pump doesn't shut off your spindle, etc.). You can save multiple
configuration files if you have multiple machines.

Finally, as you'd hope and expect, it does import and export DXF format
files. This seems to work about as well as it does with anyone else's
drawing package (which is to say your mileage may vary). Single layer
drawings move from Quickcad to Bobcad and back reasonably well. Multiple
layer Bobcad drawings create fatal errors in Quickcad.

I realize my point of view is limited, but I have downloaded and looked at
some other demo and shareware packages out there. Bobcad seems to be a
simple way to make parts for someone who doesn't have the time (or money)
to use a high-end CAD/CAM package. As I said before, in many hours of use,
it's yet to cause a protection fault, erase half my drawing or fail to
operate consistently. That alone is impressive these days.

Mike