Hello all,

  Anyone have any experience with BobCAD/CAM V21? Especially the CAM aspect of this package? Even older versions.

  I am considering purchasing this package for the CAM aspect alone, as I have Autodesk Inventor and use it for solid modeling all my parts now and probably won't change. I do need a fully functional CAM outfit that can atleast offer 3 axis code and position a 4th axis without my having to manually add most of the details.

  They are hard sale types that's for sure, but the only comparably priced packages I've seen are VCarve and some others that do not have 4th axis ability (as far as their phone staff has told me). the BobCAD folks are willing to make me a deal at the moment, but a deal on something that won't save me work is not a deal (if that is the case).

  Would appreciate your feedback...What works for you without spending 4 hours cleaning up posts or making the posts yourself anyway. I kind of get the impression that BobCAD doesn't really have any canned cycles built into it, but that a person that is savvy with creating the macro programming can build the scripting into BobCAD to create posts with G12/13's and G81's and so on....

Thanks,
John B. 

JB,

I have little to offer to your post, but because I am an interested party I will share what I think/know by first declaring:

"I am a BobCad V21 user". There!! My confession is now public and complete.

Jests aside, we all know there are better and not as good CADCAM apps out there. I am a relatively new user and hardly competent, but I am able to accomplish what I want without too much pain. I use the CAD portion for my drawings and I find it fairly straight forward, but few of my drawings are very complicated and few have more than a few layers.

Creation of GCode with V21 is OK, but again, I have not worked it very long or hard, so my experience factor is about a 1 or 2 on a 10 scale. I do find the post-processor for Mach3 to be quite spare. I have read that I can augment the BobCad provided PP with my own customization, but have not yet tackled that project. I have not had to spend time cleaning up my GCode. If pay attention to the chains, the Gcode it produces has been quite useable.

I looked at several products but the only one I considered seriously was OneCNC. Nice Product line!! But when it came down to cost and the ability to do the things I wanted to do, BobCad would work and was a lot less expensive. When I got real with the fact that this is a hobby (not how I make my living), I felt my decision was obvious. But the old saw appies: You still get what you pay for.

So, that's what I know. I too look froward to others' feedback. You might also go here and post your questions. http://216.117.147.20/bobcadsupport/forums/ You have to subscribe but it's a good forum.

Later...

David