Cad Programs

[neal]

DeltaCad Pro seems to be an easy CAD program. It's available from Midnight Software. www.dcad.com I ordered on the web one night and it arrived postal day after next with CD and a manual.

[Gerald D]

Neal,

May I ask if you had any experience of other CAD programs prior to your purchase of DeltaCad? (I could not find the "Pro" version that you refer to) Any reason why you did not try completely free programs first?

[neal]

Gerald,
I do have "Vector 9" but it's more (3D)than I need for many applications. I searched the Web, and found DeltaCad's Demo to be a quite good 2D CAD Program for $39.95 + 4.95 shipping (includes a CD and Manual). I'm a new ShopBotter, I just got mine assembled/wired about a week ago.

[mechtron@iafrica.com]

Hi Neal,

Thanks for the reply. I would agree that Vector is a bit intimidating for the first time CAD user. However, don't hide it too far away - you will find a lot of useful things in there, later . . .

Welcome to the crowd, feel free to e-mail directly on mechtron@iafrica.com (mailto:mechtron@iafrica.com)

[neal]

Thanks Gerald,
I already have found it useful. I've been converting some raster images to vectors, and found Vector9 usefull in cleaning them up and ordering the paths. I also did some fonts and cleaned them with Vector9. Just bought CorelDraw10 to replace my old, old, DrawPerfect Program.

[jerry]

Neal,

There is a service pack for CorelDraw 10. You can download it from Corel's support website.

---- jerry

[buddywald@yahoo.com]

Is anyone using Profile Lab? Is it worth while purchasing? what would you compare it to?

Thank you

Tom Wald

[edandsandy.butler@verizon.net]

I am not a ShopBot user but am considering purchasing one. I use Intellicad 2000 extensively. Connect to cadopia.com and in the upper left hand corner is a spot to check to download a free trial version of ICAD 2001. It's good for 1000 saves. I haven't tried ICAD 2001 yet as it was just released and has several bugs yet. You can still download ICAD 2000 for free from somewhere, but I can't remember from where. I also use Rhino 3D and it's cost is $795.

Ed Butler

[danhamm@abccom.bc.ca]

Corel Cadd, Corel Visual Cadd, Corel 3/d Modeler,

Have you heard of any of them?..I hadn,t...3 yrs
ago I built a new house and I am still unpacking,
a couple of weeks ago I was sorting through some of the boxes and came across a lot of old CD's
the freebe's you toss in a drawer or garbage..I was going through them and one was Corel Cad for
windows NT 3.51, so I loaded it on a unit with win2k and no problems, I have been playing with it ever since..Its a 3/d cad program and is very easy to use, I am not a 3/d user but there are times when it would be nice to add the touch to certain pieces, it has filters for so many different formats dxf,dwg,bmp,tiff,stl,and many more,it has the format for creating your own macro's to write post processors and other things.

So I emailed Corel wanting buy and upgrade for the
30 day fully functioal copy, "no answer" emailed again, and again, I finally phoned them and was passed from pillar to post, finally I was turned over to archives, they informed me that Corel
sold all the rights for Corelcad,corel visual cad,
but still owned some rights to the modeler, in 1997 to IMSI who is Turbo Cad people, I am not interested in any of the new upgrades I would just like to keep the 30 day one I have now, "but"
they can't turn it on from Corel and IMSI won't or can't.. The program is excellant you can create little 3/d moves in seconds with a mouse..

So if anyone has any ideas or knows of someone with a numbered copy that would sell it I would appreciate it.. Dan

[fuzzygrub@sinclair.net]

Dan, I have under two inches of dust and old power bills, Turbocad 3d modeler. Is this close? keith

[danhamm@abccom.bc.ca]

Thanks Keith "but no"
the one I want is corelcad, I guess its the first and only one they made.. Dan

[fuzzygrub@sinclair.net]

Dang your fast. What are you doing? Monitoring the forum?

[danhamm@abccom.bc.ca]

No I was searching for and email address for a fella that sold his shopbot on Vancouver Island,
His old email doesn't work any more..

By the way its only 9.45 pm here.. Dan

[fuzzygrub@sinclair.net]

Dan, Are you actually one of us west coasters? I don't want to sound like I'm in a chat room, but it is rare to hear from botters on this side of the big river.

[danhamm@abccom.bc.ca]

Keith,I am a Cariboo Chilcotin boy, 15 miles from
a town of 5000.
What big river?

[gdorrington@iafrica.com]

Psst, if you click on the underlined blue names, you can send each e-mails
(it doesn't work every time)

Keith is at fuzzygrub@sinclair.net
while Dan is at danhamm@abccom.bc.ca (Canada?)

Guess the river is the Mississippi (Spelling?)

[Gary B]

I have yet to figure out how to mirror or rotate
any of my parts I have filed in Vector.....Perhaps it's my lack of cad skills but I feel like I have good computer skills....A lot of talk here about some of the less expensive cad programs and the fact that most of the time only
2-d is needed. I believe I fall into that category. Has anyone mastered Vector in 2-d....
If so, where was the most helpful tutorials found ?....What's the current consensus on the best low cost cad software ? Thanks In Advance....Gary B.

[rgengrave@aol.com]

Gary I am not going to knock Vector but I run a server that has over 300 shopbotters on it and others that run different cnc machines and not 1 of them has figured out Vector.

You can buy Turbocad for $30.00 at most software stores or you can get it on e-bay.

If you can find CorelDraw 7 and up for a fair price that would be nice to have.

There are just to many programs to list that will work for you, but get a program that many are using and you will not have any problems, or just get on the server and master a shopbot in less then a week.

If you live in the U.S we call you and walk you thru it all, just ask any shopbotter on the server and they will tell you that we spend many hours showing you how to do it.

If you need files made but do not have the programs to do them? we will make them at no cost to you.

You can get more info on our server at

http://www.rngengravers.com

Ron V

[sheldon@dingwallguitars.com]

Gary,

I just figured the mirroring out today. Select what you want to mirror, File, copy, paste. When the paste dialog box comes up, enter 180 degrees for either x or y rotation. Either enter a displacement value or move the blue coordinate axis arrows between the copy and paste commands to control where the copy ends up.

[basgb@aol.com]

Sheldon.....Thanks for the heads up....O K , know that I've rotated a part, I'm cutting wood so the grain has to selected in the right direction...the parts need to be aligned for minimal waste in conjunction with cutter size..need to align also for true / inside / outside of part to be cut.......My point is that the learning curve with software is can be huge.......AND, they don't want to put a book
( or a video) out for learning the program...They want you to attend a seminar !?!?!?!? not everyone can get away to do this and or can even afford to take the time and money to do it.....
In My Humble Opinion, that's a real bummer.......
RON V. ...Tried to open the web address that you posted but I got an "action cancelled" with only part of the site opening.....On the positive side of things I'd like to say thanks to you guys for quickly responding to my message.....If ya got any more thoughts on this cad stuff you can also e-mail me at: basgb@aol.com (mailto:basgb@aol.com) ........By the way.....I have a prt 48 and as soon as i get comfortable with a cad solution I know this thing is gonna' "ROCK"....I'm working on musical instrument parts.....Mandolins to start but hope to go into a high $ line of acoustic guitars...
(Yep, I live in Nashville)
Great to have a forum here for shopbotters.....
Thanks again....Gary B.

[Wdyasq@yahoo.com]

Gary B,

If you will fill in your e-mail, you might get some responses 'off-line'. Sometimes you will learn things "In private" that the poster does not want said in public.

That said, I use VECTOR to write and check cutting paths.

I use other CAD programs to write the files. Sometimes I will move or modify the file in VECTOR.

The MOST useful command I have found in VECTOR is the Special/Verify. The 'Copy/paste' allows rotation to align grain and displace to make multiple copys. Watch the 'dialogue' box in the cut and paste, it can do some strange things till you get the mental process VECTOR uses in your mind.

I find VECTOR like a woman. I can't use all the features and I doubt I will ever learn all of the little ways they work. But, I don't think I want to live without it.

Ron

[imserv@imsrv.com]

Gary. There is a Vector user support/discussion forum at http://www.vectorcam.com

Look under support.

To mirror in Vector, use the copy-paste technique as Sheldon mentioned, but instead of using the rotate about Z axis by 180 degrees, just click the X or Y axis mirror. All the X or Y values in the geometry will be reversed between positive and negative. This is relative to the location of the coordinate axis, so be sure to place it where you want to do the mirroring, before you edit-copy.

If you have Vector 9, it comes with the complete contents of the 370 page printed manual in electronic format, on your CD. You are free to print it out. There are almost 200 pages of tutorial style information included. Contact Shopbot or IMService to purchase a printed hardcopy.

Gibson Guitar right in your town is using Vector to make prototype parts.

Best Regards,

Fred Smith
IMService

[Gary B]

Thanks to all for the info.....Gibson guitar ?
Never heard of em'....LOL
Thanks again....Gary B.