[cncadmin]

How much does maintenance cost after the first year?
If purchased while your maintenance contract is still active or within seven days of expiration, maintenance is just $295 for a full year. After your maintenance contact has expired, as long as your license of Alibre Design is up-to-date or only one version older than the current release, you may renew maintenance at $495 for a full year. If your license of Alibre Design is two versions older than the current release, your maintenance renewal price is $595.


That is typical for most software company's out there.

[noid]

I'm using Alibre as a design tool in my small design company and have found that it is great. I'm competeing against larger companies using SW, Inventor, And the like. I find it works better in the conversion of 3D models to 2D Autocad drawings than Inventor. For this reason alone it beats Autodesk at it's own file formats. I have vast knowledge of Inventor as well and find that Alibre is almost a spin off or "no-name" brand of inventor with many advances that surpass inventor and a sensible price.

As for the maintance package I have not yet renewed it (I'm not sur if I have to in order to keep using it). I'll have to investigate into this and see what happens if I don't renew?

Anyway my opinion of Alibre is finally someone out there understands that parametric modeling is not a real complex thing. If you look back, parametric modeling (to some degree) has always been around. In ealy versions of autocad, 3d modeling and x-refing could somewhat achieve the same results. Parts of course were not "smart" or "adaptive" hence the parametric thing. With that beeing said Alibre has won my vote as the most productive software for the investment made. Parametric modeling shouldn't be expensive all things considered.

I think anyone who needs to have parametric capabilites Alibre would be a great tool.

[cncadmin]

I recieve my software tomorrow.

[Arnie]

I saw a reference to Alibre in one of the newsletters and took a look at the website with one of my colleagues here at Box Hill TAFE. We teach Solid Edge and were interested to see that Alibre has so much in common with SE. It must be built on the same kernel (parasolid comes to mind). The constraints, the sketching, the workflow, the drafting all look like the common mid range programs. Alibre has less functionality but the price tells us we could make do for most of what we want. Their online customer support must help them keep costs down.

[jonbanquer]

I saw a reference to Alibre in one of the newsletters and took a look at the website with one of my colleagues here at Box Hill TAFE. We teach Solid Edge and were interested to see that Alibre has so much in common with SE. It must be built on the same kernel (parasolid comes to mind). The constraints, the sketching, the workflow, the drafting all look like the common mid range programs. Alibre has less functionality but the price tells us we could make do for most of what we want. Their online customer support must help them keep costs down.

Alibre is built on the ACIS kernel which has some very distinct advantages over Parasolid. Here is a link with a review of the latest version.

http://manufacturing.cadalyst.com/ma....jsp?id=133490

jon

[dk1machine]

I bought Alibre about 2-3 months ago and I love it for my purposes.
I couldn't understand why there wasen't a forum folder for it on CNCzone.
The time it saves me just in dimentioning over Acadlite is well worth the
$450 that I paid for V8.

dan k
:cheers:

[cncadmin]

I never even heard about them, til I saw something on this site. Once I check out what the software had to offer I was sold, I bought a copy and am eagerly awaiting it's arrival.

[dk1machine]

Get this.......
A buddy of mine has a 1 man shop, and he -knows- about Alibre.
He bought SW anyway.....for $4000 or whatever.
No big design projects, just simple stuff & coordinate gathering, some shop drawings.....same as me.

What for????

dan k
(nuts)

[cadmgr]

Alibre is built on the ACIS kernel which has some very distinct advantages over Parasolid. Here is a link with a review of the latest version.

http://manufacturing.cadalyst.com/ma....jsp?id=133490

jon

sez it can make holes.
what specific advantages over what?

[ChrisJ]

Ignore this message. I must of posted in the wrong location.

[ChrisJ]

Second try posting and can't get it to post in the right location.

[ARB]

Add me to the list of users. So far it looks sweet. Amazingly similar to SW.

[moyesboy2]

CNCowner was anticipating delivery of Alibre...
You can get a 30 day trial of Alibre by downloading it from their website. Often they will extend this trial if you are unsure.
During th trial you get support from the Alibre assistant online.
You can download the user manual as PDF so there is really nothing stoppng you getting going straight away as soon as they email you with user account details.
When ytou buy they then send you a printed manual and discs. I wouldn't mind if they gave an option to save a few more dollars and forgo the shipped bits, but the softeware is fantastic value as it is.
There is an excellent user forum on the at www.Alibre.com now.

[spalm]

Alibre looks sweet. I also really like the price. My question is can Alibre also be used for 2D design? Not just 2D documentation of a 3D part, but output DXF files that can be loaded into SheetCam. For just cutting out parts, SheetCam seems like it can not be beat. Visual Mill always wants to “mill out” any outside curves when sometimes all I want to do is “cut out” the part. This is fine for 3D parts, but I want to be able to do both (or either). Trouble is that SheetCam will only read DXF files.

Steve

[moyesboy2]

You can produce a 2D detail drawing of the 3D model looking at it from any direction.
You can then export that 2D drawing as dxf.
Before you do that you can set the geometry you need onto a new layer and the layers are preserved in the export to dxf
So you can get to what you want probably.

Alibre is not good for 2D work on its own (schematic diagrams and the like) most users are running a 2D companion.
e.g. AutoCAD LT (or progcadLT2005 which is a free intelliCAD based autocad clone currently available for download).

[tjones]

I just have to say this.....Why wait for the CD. I never have put mine in. The CD can even be shared to anyone. It is the install you can get with the Alibre Xpress. They updated my license over the internet and I had full version.

No problem updating other than I wanted to change my user name and Xpress locks out the multi-user abilities. I installed as one user but I bought as a differnet user. Didn't want to lose the pre 100k give away software license. I messed with registry to get the new signon name (they wouldn't tell that).

But still ....WHY WAIT!