Originally Posted by
dharmic
5 axis cuts out a lot of players.
The big boys like PTC Creo, Solidworks + SolidCAM, Autodesk Inventor + HSMWorks, Catia etc you're looking north of £10,000 per seat for five axis simultaneous CAM and modelling. For the kind of budget you're looking at with a machine like that, probably not the best match!
The guys at ZWCad seemed pretty happy to make a deal on a hobby sale and were pretty helpful when I was evaluating. Seemed pretty comprehensive but I don't know if there's much of an english speaking user base for it.
After the harassment that ensued after an initial enquiry I would not go anywhere near dolphin or bobcad. IMO a bunch of used car salesmen that will tell you anything to get a sale then, from tales I've read on here, blame you when it turns out the stuff you asked and paid for doesn't exist. I wouldn't trust 'em as far as I could throw them.
Fusion 360 is free for non-commercial (eg hobbyists, students etc) or startups earning under USD100k and it supports 5 axis simultaneous milling. You'll likely end up driving a machine like that with Mach3 and 5 axis post processor files are kicking around for 360 to suit Mach3. I've switched to it at home, there are things it can't do that others can but there are usually workarounds and it's under pretty active support and development. Plus five axis for free. A pain that the file storage stuff is all cloud based but, hell, it's free!
I'd personally start off with Fusion 360. It's a decent learning platform and moderately productive and, by the time you start hitting limitations you'll at least have a better understanding of what questions to ask in a more comprehensive package.