RE: CAM Software: Opinions Wanted

Hi Bryan,

I think a lot of us have had a similar experience. While "evaluating",
I couldn't get BobCad to do several simple things (sure, it was probably
me). I called their tech support, and they couldn't be bothered to tell
me how/why to cut a large block letter 'C'. Nothing fancy, mind you,
but Bobcad would always generate bad Gcode.

Vector followed my thoughts right away. Do the examples, get a feel for
"working/thinking" in vectors (hence the name), and forget
Autocad-think! I could immediately get the hang of it, and I like the
full usage of cut-copy-paste, and the other standard "windoz" functions.
My .02 USD worth.

Alan KM6VV
(no connections to Vector!)


Gail & Bryan Harries wrote:

>
> >I "evaluated" BobCAD for close to a year before I decided to buy Vector.
> I'm glad I did.<
>
> Alan, like you I have had BobCAD/CAM for quite a while now... but am
> disappointed with it... it is capable of doing the job but (for me) it
> doesn't have a fluid/logical method of going about the tasks... and if you
> have a change part way through, you may as well start that detail over...
> the CAM part is nice in the fact it is integrated but always manages to get
> something not quite right... I spend so much time going over the code
> looking for the erroneous "fly off over here for no reason" moves that I
> may as well have coded by hand... So even though I have the money invested
> in BobCAD/CAM I do most of my 2 1/2D work based on sketches done in
> AutoSketch 2.1 and coding by hand in Word or NotePad... I know this sounds
> slow and long winded, but my familiarity with Sketch means I can get the
> geometry and the tool path offsets done in very short order... then the time
> to key in code is not much more than the time to read over the code to
> verify it as I would have to do with BobCAD/CAM... so when it comes to doing
> 3D surfaces it is a real PITA having to get BobCAD/CAM do it all right... I
> have Pro/Desktop (Pro/E basic) for modeling in 3D but nothing to use with it
> for code... I have demo of Solid Edge, but haven't got into that yet...
>
> I have wanted to look at Vector as it has been getting good praise (in
> general) by those that do have it... but like the majority, I don't have
> enough blocks of time to conduct an evaluation inside 30 days... therefore
> have not signed up for an evaluation copy, yet... Rhino and RAMS also looks
> like a good possibility... but once again getting time to evaluate them is
> almost impossible...
>
> Does anyone have experience with Rhino and/or RAMS that would like to
> comment?
>
> Thanks for all the good input on this thread... I'm following with interest.
>
> Bryan