[firsthuston]

I've used Catia, Solidworks, Inventor and AutoCAD over the years. Anyone else think BobCAD is about useless for modeling? The CAM side I am okay with, but damn near need to draw everything in SolidWirks first.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[The Engine Guy]

It`s only hard because you are used to propriety CAD packages, pretty much all of the CAD-CAM softwares don`t CAD as well as the (Mega expensive) softwares you mention, I don`t find it too bad, didn`t say it was great but I and many thousands of other users get by pretty well thank you very much with our V28 3 Axis Pro

If you want the best of both world then why not have a "Plugin" for your Solidworks ?

Most of the Cad-CAM software vendors have one for Solidworks these days including BobCAD, have you tried that out, if you have Solidworks then you can download a Demo of the BobCAD V5 "Plugin" to test drive, or the Delcam one or the Mastercam one etc, etc.

Just my $0.02 worth

Regards
Rob
:rainfro: :rainfro: :rainfro:

[firsthuston]

I wish I could plug them in together. I use SW at work for quick things, but don't have it at home lol

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[BurrMan]

I've used Catia, Solidworks, Inventor and AutoCAD over the years. Anyone else think BobCAD is about useless for modeling? The CAM side I am okay with, but damn near need to draw everything in SolidWirks first.

My brother uses it exclusively. Useless? No

Maybe post some examples of the work you are doing that requires 5 to 15k software? I mean if you are doing multi million dollar injection molds, ok. But.......

[MikeC8]

I use onshape for most of my small home projects now. Its very similar to solidworks, being that it was founded by the guy who started solidworks.

But I will create simple parts in bobcad, V27 greatly improved their cad side of the package. And if I just need a simple part with some 2d cuts and holes, its not worth the time to model it outside of bobcad, import the model, and extract edges. If you are using a version older then 27, it might be worth updating, But then again if its only for a hobby, like it is for me at home. Then it might not be worth it.

[BurrMan]

I use onshape for most of my small home projects now. Its very similar to solidworks, being that it was founded by the guy who started solidworks.

But I will create simple parts in bobcad, V27 greatly improved their cad side of the package. And if I just need a simple part with some 2d cuts and holes, its not worth the time to model it outside of bobcad, import the model, and extract edges. If you are using a version older then 27, it might be worth updating, But then again if its only for a hobby, like it is for me at home. Then it might not be worth it.

Remember v27 will interact with the models edges. So face selection = all faces edges and also individual edge selection. Right clicking an edge gets you a planar edge selection or a loop style selection.

[magicniner]

I use BC for modelling, it's far from useless.
If you're not used to it and don't put in the effort to learn it, you won't like it ;-)

[Big Chips]

it easy to model...i do it all the time...

[Tkamsker]

I Love the bc Cam side i would Love a Cam only Package the Problem i have with bc CAD that the Ui Design and mecanic is from the 90 s ,.. Beeing in it Since Long Time as Well know it For sure i learned rhino3 d , turbocad heekscad , AutoCAD , and Most intuitive is Turbo CAD so i end up paying For a CAD i dont use and Can Not Chose ,..


Gesendet von iPad mit Tapatalk

[magicniner]

Anyone looking for an AutoCad Clone doesn't get on with BobCad.
As someone with experience of using and programming a wide range of non-cad software and with a manual technical drawing background I have to say that I found BobCad more intuitive than all the AutoCad-Alikes, I tried them but couldn't get on with them, I didn't find them in the least intuitive ;-)
AutoCad is not intuitive until you are fairly familiar with the package, the way to become familiar enough with a package is to open your mind and make the effort to learn to use it, BCC is the package for which you have least excuses for not learning as there is a wealth of good quality free tutorial video footage available, the excuse for not using it can only be that you're too busy or too lazy, that's not a fault with the software

- Nick

[Tkamsker]

Or it is more like Girls someone like Tall other small like Ballerina or blonde etc ,.. Most important is that you Can efficient achieve your goals so that is why my toolchain is probably more complicated than Yours -


Gesendet von iPad mit Tapatalk

[magicniner]

"My Toolchain's Bigger Than Yours"
Ooooh Matron! :-)

To be having anything but an unspecified whine you'd have to be detailed in describing exactly what kind of thing you can't (or can't be bothered to) model in BC, I know it doesn't lend itself to particularly artsy 3D construction, luckily I don't want to model Michaelangelo's David so it suffices for me.

- Nick

[robobass]

Anyone looking for an AutoCad Clone doesn't get on with BobCad.
As someone with experience of using and programming a wide range of non-cad software and with a manual technical drawing background I have to say that I found BobCad more intuitive than all the AutoCad-Alikes, I tried them but couldn't get on with them, I didn't find them in the least intuitive ;-)
AutoCad is not intuitive until you are fairly familiar with the package, the way to become familiar enough with a package is to open your mind and make the effort to learn to use it, BCC is the package for which you have least excuses for not learning as there is a wealth of good quality free tutorial video footage available, the excuse for not using it can only be that you're too busy or too lazy, that's not a fault with the software
- Nick

I totally agree. My first experience with cad or cam was v16. Tried Autocad at the time but found BC way easier for the simple stuff I was doing. After a fifteen year hiatus from the design world I bought a 3axis router and v.26. Again I looked at Autocad, but found BC more intuitive, and I now do some fairly complex surfacing. I still can't get certain things to work, and occasionally touch up a model in Rhino, but about 97% of my modelling is done in v.26

[Beansdiesel]

I use both BCC and SolidEdge. I find BCC much more simple to use for making up quick models. I have not worked with Solidedge enough yet to be quick and efficient at it but the one area I go to it for on a regular basis is for edge rounding or Filleting. If I have any trouble in BCC with that I just save it as an IGES, open in SE and do my fillets then export it and reopen back in BCC. There is a lot of cool stuff that can be done in SE but I just have not had time to learn it and BCC at the same time.

[robobass]

Yes! I especially have trouble with fillets and roundovers. Maybe V28 has improved this? I go to Rhino to do it. Haven't heard about SolidEdge before.

[magicniner]

Interesting about fillets, I wonder if this is being/has been addressed in V28 ?

- Nick

[The Engine Guy]

Yes! I especially have trouble with fillets and roundovers. Maybe V28 has improved this? I go to Rhino to do it. Haven't heard about SolidEdge before.

There are some issues with Chamfering and Filletting, however if they don`t require to be 100% then there are a couple of "workarounds" you can try for those that don`t have the luxury of another more mature CAD software

I had a model to do that had a rectangular hole with the sides requiring a draft angle of 4 degrees and the floor had to slope down from the bottom of each side to a "drain" hole in the middle of the floor, now I needed to have 4mm rads around the bottom edges of the walls to the sloping floor and also 4mm rads on the draft angle wall joins

BC just didn`t want to do it, I could get either the top to bottom rads to work or the ones around the bottom but not both, in this case there were two things I needed to do, one was to work in the correct order and that was from the bottom up and two if I changed the radius ever so slightly from 4.0mm to 3.999mm it worked fine

On a chamfer shape I needed to do at 45 degrees on an edge that was 5.0mm high which was a shape that I couldn`t extrude so ended up having to do an extrude cut with a reverse angle, to get that to work again it turned out that I had to alter the dimension a fraction,so instead of 45 degrees I had to input 44.99 degrees and it worked fine.

If it is just a matter of creating the model for presentation purposes the above are fine to use and when the actual cutting is done it will be cut correctly due to the cutter rads/angles

Also for those that don`t have another CAD software available they should try using Onshape www.onshape.com which is free to use for a small number of "Documents" and is accessed online from anywhere without any download whatsoever, is is very much like Solidworks and is excellent, it will also produce Engineering Drawings for you as well, something that BobCAD is sadly lacking big time

Hope these ramblings are of some use to folks

Regards
Rob
:rainfro: :rainfro: :rainfro:

[The Engine Guy]

Interesting about fillets, I wonder if this is being/has been addressed in V28 ?

- Nick

Nick

Yes, quite a lot has been done in V28 but there are still a few "wrinkles" to sort out, nothing is perfect
Regards
Rob
:rainfro: :rainfro: :rainfro:

[MikeC8]

It sounds like I am to young to like bobcads cad

I use it for the cam, and I tolerate the cad side when needed. If I was a job shop, I would take the time to master the cad side of bobcad.

I have been using Onshape and Fusion 360 for cad design at home. And both work very well with parametric designs.

[magicniner]

It sounds like I am to young to like bobcads cad

Yes, it's easy to spot to! ;-)