TurboCAD/CAM?

[bill.young]

Hey,

TurboCAD/CAM has been out for a couple of months now... is anyone using it, and if so what's your opinion?

Bill

[bjwat@comcast.net]

Bill,
I got the 15 day demo a while back and just installed it this weekend. It seems pretty good, although when I go to save the file as a 3DS, it seriously crashes. Not only does it come up with an invalid fault dialog...but it keeps generating them and forces me to do a hard reboot. It saves regualar TC files without any problems.

All in all it is a nice program. I believe that the CAM portion of the software is a plugin to Version 8.2 Pro.

-Brady

[bruce_clark]

Bill,

There was some discussion of this program on the CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO group. The concensus was that is was pretty good for 2.5D but that was it. Most people who were familar with TurboCAD liked it, but others said it was not any better than VectorCAD (and I think that Vector was given the nudge because of better tech support and a few more powerful CAM features).

BTW, for those of you who are not familar with the CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO list, check it out here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO/

It is free--no fees to pay--it really does have over 3000 members and the knowledge base of these people is beyond believe! One thing, there is a LOT of traffic and it is not unusual for there to be over 100 messages a day. A lot of work to keep up with.

Bruce Clark

[bill.young]

Thanks for the feedback guys. If I was starting out with CAD and CNC I would sure give it a hard look, but I dread the thought of learning any new software. I still use TurboCAD version 4!

Bill

And thanks for the link to the CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO list, Bruce. I'd never seen that before....that's an amazing resource.

[sheldon@dingwallguitars.com]

I installed it on my laptop, fired it up for 10 or 15 minutes and decided unless I can free up more time to kill on a learning curve, I'm going to have to wait untill there's a compelling reason.

[gerald_d]

There is already a thread (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/31/1149.html?) on TurboCadCam.

My impression is that it is dedicated to metalworkers and loaded with far too many bells and whistles. To use it, I would have to unlearn AutoCad (& Vector) but I cannot see any clear advantage that this new software could bring me.