My CAD CAM evaluations

I just want to share some of the research that I have done so far in
the search of a CAD CAM package. I have a Shoptask retrofit with
CNCPRO as the NC (Mach1 is in my future). I am not a professional
just a hobbyist. The kind of CAD CAM requirements that I have been
looking for are at least 3d. 4th axis and lathe abilities are also
desirable. My test criteria was to see how easy it would be to draw
and make tool paths for a simple "dish" with a 2 inch diameter either
parabolic, sphericle or whatever.

Here are my oppinions after trying to make a dish with the listed
CAM/CAM packages. Note these are the demo versions.

POWERSTATION
price: quoted $1495 for the whole package
comments:
I found powerstation very hard to use. It's windows interface is not
very user friendly. I write GUI's for a living and I found that
powerstation did not adhere to windows guidlines.

BOBCAD
price: qouted $495 for version 18 they are desparate
comments:
I found Bobcad very hard to use. I tried the tutorials and only got
one of them to work. The modify mode is a joke. I actually found a
Bobcad tutorial that makes a dish and it did not work! I must have
spent 30 hours with Bobcad getting nowhere so I removed it from my
computer.

VECTOR32
price: quoted $795 for the nerbs version
Very much like Bobcad with a few bells and whistles. The support is
better. The tutorials are better laid out and there are alot of them
but very difficult to get them to work. After 4 hours no dish.

Capsmill
price: expensive
When I started playing around with capsmill I found that it worked
much like the above programs so I did'nt waste too much time with
it. A very annoying dialog box pops up for every entity drawn asking
for coordinates. Can't it just let my mouse move it first then let
me refine the coordinates later! NO!


The four above mentioned programs above are not typical drawing
programs. You almost need graph paper and pencil next to you with a
sketched part on it to see the coordinates. They are probably
perfect for reverse engineering where you want to copy an existing
part. Importing drawings may work. But I had problems importing too.
These programs must be for a different breed of machinist. All that
I can figure is that these programs were originally made for DOS in
the early 80's. When the mouse was invented computer drawing took on
a whole new light that these programs have not come up to speed with.


I wanted something much easier to use so I can get going on my
projects. Heres is what I liked.

TURBOCADCAM
price: $495 I purchased this.
comments: I like this program. I was able to make a dish and a
hemishpere. The tutorials work! You can drag, manipulate, resize,
rotate with just the mouse. Comes with a huge amount of symbols.
Machine setup and tool selection is very easy. I would highly
recommend TCC. Unfortunately it only does 2.5d so I did not get tool
paths for a 3d dish. Oh well. It does well with 2.5d parts.


RHINO/VISUALMILL
price: not quoted yet but online purchase for $1495
comments:
These are actully two programs. Rhino does the Cad. VisualMill does
the CAM. I am very impressed with the demo versions so far. Within
an hour, I had drawn a parabaloid dish and created tool paths all in
solid form with finish cuts. VisualMill is by far the most powerful
CAM program I have seen yet. Both Rhino and VisualMill know how to
use the mouse too! VisualMill does 3d and 4th axis (5 axis not
available yet). I bet with a little manipulation it can do lathe
too! I tried both VisaulMill demo versions 3 and 4. 3 will produce
G code. 4 will not produce G code until purchased. I believe I will
purchase Rhino/VisualMill.

Conclusion
Both TurboCad and Rhino have similar drawing abilities. The CAM part
of TCC and VisualMill are similar as well. They organize your part
cutting specs in a tree (eg tools, paths etc). They are both lay out
what you are doing very well. If 2.5d is all that you are interested
in then purchase TurboCadCam.

Comments welcome