[sansbury]

After years of working in 2D CAD I am looking to make the shift to 3D once and for all. I do mostly prototyping from napkin sketches, so looking to spend more time modeling and less time making scrap.

My question for the group is whether anyone has any experiences to share in terms of how well BCC V23 and Alibre's $99 edition play with each other. I am guessing that most of my parts will still be more 2.5D than full 3D, so I assume I will be doing models in Alibre and exporting them as DXFs.

I do have the V23 pro toolpaths however, so wouldn't mind trying some real 3D milling as well. IIRC, the basic Alibre edition will export STL files for 3D. I have never tried importing these into BCC before so have no idea whether it will be a fussy business.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any wisdom or suggestions. I don't have a lot of budget right now so my only CAD options are Alibre and TurboCAD and Alibre's parametric modeling has me pretty sold. I'm a software guy by trade so usually capable of learning my way through with a few nudges in the right direction

[mrehmus]

I have BCC 23 and Alibre Expert. BCC tends to leave the 3D models transferred in with a few gaps in the model's surface show a hollow model on the BCC screen. I have not pursued this as I'm trying to get my FlashCut 4.0 and their new all-in-one controller operating with my TAIG mill.

If you are doing 2.5D CAM, look into upgrading to the AlibreCAM software. The version that comes with Expert is 2.5D. I haven't tried to learn it yet but it is integrated into Alibre. You can usually pick and choose bits of the advanced packages and pay extra for them but not the price of an entire upgrade.

[cjdavis618]

Like mrehmus I also have Alibre Expert and the Cam Expert. I also have BCC 23 with the intention of doing more simple tasks and the machining process steps are fewer with BCC for those simple tasks.

So far, I find it fits my needs pretty well having both.

The issues I have with Alibre is more of dimensions when opening a igs, or stp file that BCC created. Alibre shows my 6" part as 113" long. I have verified in Bobcad that my dimensions are correct, but Alibre doesn't give me an option on import other than ("Force Inch/Meter")

Once I figure that out, maybe I can be more helpful with your question.