Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] My CAD CAM evaluations

Hi Dean?,

You've done a great info service! As a 2+ year Visual Mill user who
also looked at Gibbscam, Mastercad and almost Surfcam before saving a
bundle of cash and getting way more bang for buck, I'm glad you've also
found VM intuitive and robust.

I tried Rhino and while I liked many elements of it, particularly the
curve/surface manipulation, I couldn't stop wishing its user interface
was more like my regular CAD software, Ironcad check out the demos at
www.ironcad.com Ironcad is expensive still, but in my opinion. still
superior to Solid works and Solidedge. One of my reps also sells
Solidworks and he said it's 10 times easier to sell Solidworks than
Ironcad but he prefers Ironcad all day long for its powerful and
(honestly) intuitive user interface. They use the same graphics kernel
and are file compatible anyway. Plus Ironcad also fully supports ACIS
parts which I think is Autocad Inventor compatible (but don't quote me
on that) Ironcad has patents on its Trackball feature which allows you
to manipulate any object or group of objects in 3d easily. I could go
on for hours about how great this package is!

I'm pretty sure Ironcad still offers a 30 day free trial and I think
they may have some deals for Innovate their mid line package. They also
have a deal with Visual Mill. Alas it will probably still be out of
most CCED's price range, but 30 days lets you do a lot of work!

Cheers, Peter

yada yada - just a happy user etc...


deansala wrote:

>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
>
>
>
>
>
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