Closet cutting soft ware?

[ccw]

I am wondering if anyone knows of some more affordable closet soft ware.
Planit,and kcdw are major investments.
I have cabinet parts pro that cost me far less than the 10.000 they want for the latest and greatest.
Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated

[wberminio]

Mark
Are you looking for design software?
Do you want to be able lay out the closets?or layout the individual parts to cut?

Erminio

[ccw]

Erminio,
What im looking for would be some design abilty and the abilty to send that to the bot for cutting and drilling.
oh and if we can keep the cost down below and arm and a leg that would be good to. ;-)
Mark

[jhicks]

check router cad, parametric design to machine

[handh]

Jerry,

Have you used routercad.

[wberminio]

Most designers I work with use Closet Cad www.closetcad.net (http://www.closetcad.net) for designing closets
I don't think it generates Cnc codes,but you could
contact them.If not,you use any cad program to draw the individual parts.
I used a program which does my layouts and generates
my shopbot codes

Erminio

[jhicks]

Jeff, we purchased router Cad about 5 weeks ago. Spent time being frustrated and on conference calls trying to get everything set up and understood.
The version we got was $4,000.00 or a starter version which does have some limits compared to the $8,000 version but seems to have enough to be a benefit.
Now we are designing closets and cabinet parts in it, have parametric models and construction schemes being understood and implemented, plus we have rendering capability (not cab vision quality) but enough to get the job done.
The beauty is once you have your construction standards set up, you can scale from library models you establish, adjust via a spreadsheet input fields or modify base model, and finally send the output data directly to multi sheet nesting, tool paths for all sheets needed numbered in files to cut, cut list, sheet views, and parts list per sheet in a click.
Its saved us a lot of time in the shop developing cut files and tool paths, plus the old auto cad prenesting layouts are not required and all cut files for the entire job are done at once.
Just review, output, load the g-code file(s) on the bot and run.
This coupled with the single 5mm bit strategy we have adopted makes a lot of difference all around to reduce design, and set up time so we have only 10 minutes between sheets to run, run, run.

Admittedly we were slow on the learning cycle and have a ways to go to learn all the other cad and design features plus rendering and 3D room/cabinet layouts but so far we're feeling like we're getting better and soon will be more competent.
We havent run a sheet of ply on a table saw for 4 months and these last 2 weeks on routrer cad have given us a lot to be optomistic about in terms of screen to machine implementation.

[myxpykalix]

I got a email from these people a while back. They have closet and cabinet design software called Polyboard, along with nesting and stair making software. I just gave it a cursory look because i don't do those things so i don't know if any of it is any good, but you can check it out:
http://boole.club.fr/english/index_eng.php

[ccw]

Well as it seems their arent that many low cost alteratives for closet cutting software.
I am evaluateing the KCDW package.
If i understand the package from them you can rent the whole sha-bang for $95.00 month to month.
That makes it a per job tool if no work on the books for closets, let the rental lapse.
Ill keep you posted on my progress going down this path.
Mark

[handh]

Mark you are not able to send any files from KCDW with the rental package, you have to purchase the program with CNC capabilities to be able to do that, they will not rent the CNC version, I have already checked into that.

Jeff

[handh]

Thanks for the info Jerry, let me know how you like it as things progress.

Jeff

[wberminio]

I have and use Kcdw.You can E-mail me with any questions.

Erminio

[henrik_o]

Blum's Dynalog could probably do this, though it's targeted at kitchen cabinets. It's a cheap program, at ~$150 or so, but has rather limited capabilities.

It will output to dxf, but will not do nesting (iirc) nor any toolpathing.

From what I've seen of it (I bought a copy just to have it around), it's limited but robust. The downside is that you have to use Blum hardware, the upside is that since you're limited to their hardware it calculates all of that behind the scenes.

Hettich markets a program called Selection. I own this as well. It is vastly more capable than Dynalog, and since Hettich has 100 times the hardware products Blum has, and this program also automatically calculates all geometries for hardware, you have a lot more design options.

I personally feel that this program, which costs ~$400, would easily be one of the best on the market if it wasn't for one 'small' thing -- incomprehensibly, the current version does not output usable dxf files. I have been heckling them over this, but they seem quite oblivious to the fact that this makes it worthless for 90% of their customers. Once they realize they've lost the entire cnc market to Blum, I suppose they will act, but for now it's a program that's incredibly capable for its price, it's just that since it lacks one crucial feature it's useless.

Dynalog (http://www.blum.com/us/en/02/10/30/index.php)

[jhicks]

Hey Jeff, well we have continued to move forward and learn something new every day. The good news is we have finished several "construction style parametric standards" suitable for a variety of cabinet and joinery techniques. Cut several sheets successfully and are trying now to set up a few more for other requirements. as we become more familiar it gets easier and more logical.
So I would say now with confidence that 99% of what we design will be in Router cad/Auto Cabinets to force us to design the styles suitable for the many types of projects and build the library unless its a one off or sign deal.
Definately a plus to have screen to machine and the collateral print outs on the job. Next one consists of 13+ sheets of prefinished maple for cabinet carcasses for face frame cabinet/kitchen.
All files are ready to cut at the click of the mouse so gotta get that going.
I think its been a bit frustrating with the learning curve and it"doesnt do EVERYTHING" we might imagine or want but that being mostly behind us, it was the right investment for the cabinet and closet construction design automation and implementation in spite of some stratagies I would prefer to be different. Overall its a winner for what we're doing and need on sides, tops, strechers, toe kicks, dados,drill holes, construction holes, circles etc. Just takes some getting used to its logic and limits. I hear the things we might like to do can be done on the upgraded version but we're not ready for that just yet and by the time we are, it will no doubt be even better.
Next priority is to start mastering the rendering capabilities and some other features we havent jumped into yet.
You will find Tony,Carl and Monica at router cad to be nice folks who demo and train on "go to meeting" web service/conference call to give those interested a closer look.