Re: Vectorcam, bobcad, rhino3D, which one??

On Fri May 11, 2001 5:58 am
Tauseef broached the subject of CAD/CAM with this enquiry.

>Subject: Vectorcam, bobcad, rhino3D, which one??
>I have been looking into some of the 3D CAD/CAM programs and would
>like to know what you guys think. Mainly I am looking into buying
>this year and am trying out some of the demos for now. Any hints,

any

>likes/ dislikes? Mainly the program would be used for fun and maybe
>someday to make "real parts." I have a sherline mill (using CNCPro)
>with a 4th axis but find 4D programs to be very expensive. What ya
>guys think about vectorcam compared to rhino3D or bobcad? None of
>them good? what would you buy? I would like to stay around the $500-
>$1000 range (I know there is mastercam, surfcam, gibbs etc). If you
>don't feel comfie telling "the truth" here please feel free to e-

mail

>me personally..I promise I won't tell :)
>thanks!!

Firstly can we clear a few misconceptions up as regards CAD/CAM
A lot of the time various programs get lumped under the heading of
CAD/CAM but are described wrongly.

First of all CAD [ Computer Aided Drawing ] this covers programs such
as Autocad, Turbocad, Rhino, Solid edge, Cadkey and a host of others.
What a CAD program does is to draw the part very accurately and saves
it to a given format that is usually unique to that program.
Virtually all CAD programs are also able to save as DXF files. This
stands for Drawing eXchange Files and was brought out so that
drawings could be exchanged between programs. More of this later. A
CAD package on it's own isn't a lot of use unless your part is that
simple you can take co-ordinates and program it my hand

Secondly CAM, [ Computer Aided Manufacture ], funnily enough there
are very few stand alone CAM packages out there. There are a couple
that work inside of Autocad, Solid Works and Cadkey. These don't
really fall into the CAD/CAM package list as they are 3rd party add
ons. Lower priced CAM packages include ACE convertor from Yeager and
Deskcam. These are limited as they take 2D DXF files and you have to
edit the depth into them.
Millwizard and STLWorks also fall into the stand alone CAM package
but these will handle tool depth.

Lastly complete CAD/CAM packages. There are many of these. Bobcad,
Vector, Dolphin, Mastercam, Feature Cam, Gibbs, Capsmill, Alphacam
and many more. What these do is to take the drawing from the CAD side
and pass the information over to the CAM side so that it can generate
a tool path using either a post processor or a configuration file set
up for the machine it's to be used on.
Almost all of these programs are also able to import DXF files in so
that you can process files drawn by others.

Now to try to answer tauseef's request.
He asks for 3D CAD/CAM programs and mentions a comparison between
Bobcad, Vector and Rhino. From the information given above you can
only compare Bobcad and Vector as Rhino is a CAD only program.
Next thing you need to consider is what are you going to make, in
this case Tauseef doesn't cover this.
Some posters have suggested Rhino and Millwizard or Ampari and STL
works or combinations of the above.
Fine these fall into the 3D realm but they are only good for doing
surface work such as jewelry, signs and profile shapes. They cannot
do drilling routines or follow canned cycles.
He specifically asks for 3D so this puts programs like Dolphin and
Capsmill out as although they are very good programs they are only 2
1/2D programs.
Now we get onto the 3D programs. Mastercam, Gibbs, Alphacam, are all
high dollar programs and most also have a yearly maintenance fee in
the $1,000 range. So from a hobby point of view that puts these way
out of the running.
From a purely affordable view this leaves Bobcad and Vector. Price
wise they are roughly equal but Fred Smith of Imserv who post on this
list does offer a good discount to list users. Feature wise Vector
has far more features than Bobcad. Support is very good, again
handled by Fred Smith. Bobcads support is virtually non existent, you
only need to do a web search to discover this.
So to answer all the questions above it's got to work out in Vectors
favour.

This probably has got to look like an advert for Fred and Vector but
I can assure people that I have no connection with Fred Smith and I'm
not even a customer. I don't do any 3D work but if I had a need to I
wouldn't hesitate to buy the program.

John Stevenson
Nottingham, England.
[ hopefully Yahoo won't loose this one ]