Casmate pro for signmaking?

[uniguard@pamlico.net]

I to can relate to all the difficulties shopbotters have trying to understand the documentation that came with the Vector Software. I even looked at other CAD/CAM Software packages and the prices turned me away so instead I thought I would give Vector one last chance. As one that considers myself fairly proficient with computers I am the type that believe the manuals are for people that have never used a computer before. I like the idea of being able to point and click to see what the software will do and learn from there. Well with Vector that simply is not going to happen. I guess I learned the hard way and with Vector its either Vectors way or no way at all. Although I dreaded it, I started to read through the manuals and doing each exercise and illustrated. I followed up by reading post on Vector and I must say that many of the Post from John Fornery and Fred Smith were a great help. After a little time I began to get the hang of Vector and now I find it a very valuable tool in the production of our parts. Oh! Believe me I have a long way to go with learning the additional features that Vector offers but I now realize its potential and ultimate benefits.

At this time Vector maybe a little to far over my head to design work and therefore I rely mostly on Turbo Cad and Corel for layout. However, once the project is the way I want it I use Vector to fine tune it and create my cutting files.

By the way I just received my Vector 9 upgrade and although the documentation is a little brief it seems Imservice has been listening to the feed back regarding their documentation and the new manual is much clearer and easier to understand.

Vector owners stay with it eventually you’ll realize all the benefits. Now if Vector to come out with some sort of easy to use nesting routine it would really make my day.

[rgengrave@aol.com]

Ken I agree, Vector might be an ok program in the long run? but I find that it is simple to use a cad program to draw your files in and use Vector to do the Tool Path,but it you draw in a cad program you can set the tool path there,Turbocad 4.1 will let you do this with 1 click of the mouse, I just select 1 or all and set the offset to the bit I will be using and it is done.

There is a shopbotter that is selling his machine and was going to give the Vector, I passed on the offer, if I could not learn it with the 30 day demo then I did not need it, I have tried Master Cam and it only took me less then 2 days and I was able to make anything, but the guy down the road moved and master cam with with him )-:

My needs are for only 2d files, I will stay away from making 3d files because of the time it takes to cut, I can not see what a price would be for a file to take 10 hours to cut.

I checked out Fred Smiths page and feel he is on the right track now, this gives a good example of the power behind Vevtor,I feel if there were more files like that on the site? there might be more interest with Vector?.The down side is all the steps we have to perform to do the file, and with any program you use! you will still have to remember the steps.

Ron

[danhamm]

I am going to add my 2bits here, I agree with Ron,
I bought a $7500.00 3/d everything inclusive prog.
and can't afford to use it,it just takes to long
anything youmake with it is to exspensive no one
will buy it,I have found that I can make things in adifferent way to assimilate 3/d I use coreldraw and signlab, I use the shopbot converter,If you make your cut files in the order you want them to cut then you don't have to reorganize just convert ..

[garbob]

When I purchased the PRT96 I had the silly notion that this would be easy to set up, use and cut things, figuring about 3 weeks from start to finish. After much fussing, I realized that I was not going to get the machine set-up without many hundreds of hours of my time and a lot more tools that I owned at the time. Keep in mind that I know nothing about mechanics, and I mean nothing. So that nice Ted sent me an installer and off I went on my new machine think "Ah, here we go!". I was very excited, I'm sure that you all know the feeling.

Patiently I tried each and every kind of software package available. Cad, Cam, Cas they are all black holes of time. They are complicated to the extreme, they ALL have specific ways of doing the same function. They have the worst documentation and tutorials known to man. Most of them don't even work properly. They are truly horrible. And most are VERY expensive. Did I mention that I also have had no education in cad. I have used Corel Draw for years for print media.

My award for the worst software package of all time in ANY category goes to TurboCad. I started with v5 and upgrade to 6.5. The doc'n was absolutely terrible, the tutorials incorrect. I struggled with it for a long time (always seeing people on this and other forums saying how wonderful it is). I then figured "Ah, I know, I'll get trained on this." Wrong. The only source of Tcad training material at that time was a book put out by knowledge something which cost me $160 cdn, delivered by mule (8 days). All the errors in the tutorials in the Tcad manual were duplicated in this book. Oh. they had added some other incorrect, misleading tutorials of their own, too.

I then thought that I would try Vector, as I had purchased it with the machine. Pretty much a ditto for vector, but I could almost do a few things consistently. Again the lack of decent doc'n killed me. I then tried the Vcarvz demo. Bad doc'n, but finally thought that I would make the plunge and buy Vcarvz. I did BUT the Vector had to be updated to 8.1. After that I had so many problems that I just gave up and figured I'd sell the machine or just go and beat it to death with a hammer!

I did keep looking at things and some seemed useful. I tried some more packages and was left wanting. All this was a result of my thinking that I could use Corel Draw to design and then run the dxf output into SB's converter. "Oh, how come my drawing is showing up in the wrong place on the material?". If you've tried the converter you now know why. I'm not into mental abuse. If I pick up a hammer to drive a nail I should be able to. I shouldn't have to have a medicine man or swami come and hover over it chanting all the while and then be told that I have to pick it up in a certain manner and then wave it around a few times in an exact figure 8 first! I just want to drive a nail with the hammer.

It seemed to me that there must be a way for the PRT96 to be able to do what I wanted without all of the conversions and mumbo jumbo! By the way TED, it's quite the machine. Your a smart fellow!

Well finally I get to the point! There is such a way to have the machine do my bidding. It's called Corel Draw with output exported as an .eps file. AND THEN open the file in RAMS SOFTWARE and cut exactly what you want, when you want it, where you want it and how you want it. Compared to other packages that I have tried (ProfileLab, Vector, SignLAb, EngraveLab, Enroute and a bunch of cad packages this stuff is like the holy grail. I'm finally using my machine to do EVERYTHING that I want it to. I haven't tried doing everything in RAMS so far, in fact I haven't even bought it yet. I am so leary of plunking down anything over the several thousand dollars (yes, it's only cdn. money, but it's 1.6 times more of it than Americans pay for the same product or service) that I have spent so far, not to mention the hundreds and hundreds of hours of sheer frustration that I have spent (35 hours of REAL TIME on learn Vector in "1 day" I think it was that this time I am going to satisfy myself thoroughly FIRST.

Sorry for the verbosity, BUT I just had to tell someone. David Ford at Rams Software is getting sick of me telling him how wonderful his product is, I'm sure. I'm not a gushy type of person BUT this software has changed my life! No longer do I have to listen to my wife groan everytime I mention the white elephant that I bought! The absolute bestest thing about this whole package is the support. Would you believe that there is real, live telephone support? If you have to leave a message, you are called back REAL SOON.

I just can't say enough and I'm plugging up the air waves or the forum waves, or whatever.

[jkforney]

Gary
I am glad you got your machine up and running. I am also glad that you found software that works for you, but many of us use the software you found so difficult and don't share your views.

Many of the people use all the different software packages you mention and find them easy to learn and use. Many people post on the shopbot forum about their favorite software and describe the other packages as "hard, difficult, impossible" and always mention the lack of good manuals.

I would point out that not everyone finds a particular package acceptable but to disparage all other software is, in my opinion, nothing more than hyperbole. It is enough to say that you like and use a certain software. What works works.

Again, I am delighted that you have found software that works for you and now you can use your shopbot to make money with instead having it raise your blood pressure.

John Forney

[rgengrave@aol.com]

Gary I have been on the phone a few times with David Ford, real nice guy, he explained Rams Software to me and how it worked, he went out of his way to make me some files I sent him, he is going to send me the steps in Screen Cam on how it was done, I will post them as soon as they come in, I will have them on the server to, from what I have seen so far? just a few cilick of the mouse and it is done, real nice.

As for Turbocad you should have called me? I just spent 4 hours on the phone with a member of the server, I showed him everything in Turbocad, he too was lost by reading the books on it, he now knows how to do anything 2d and some 3d, he told me that he spent two weeks playing with it and reading, he could not even do Text, but after a phone call he is now a master of the program, life can not be better then that.

He bought a cable machine from someone and explained his needs to me, he is now getting a upgrade to R/P.

He now knows the power of the server we have, just call it a 1 time stop for anything you need to do.

There are 375 shopbotter on it and 3 more just got on this week, They tell me what it is they want to do and I show them how with the programs they have, they learn more in 1 hour then they can in 6 months of reading.

We have members that have MASTERCAN, ARTCAM, MODELMILL, SIGNLAB,PROFILELAB,AUTOCAD, CASMATE PRO,MILWIZARD,Turbocad, the list goes on, we try to save the shopbotters time on how to draw.

Best part about it is you do not need to pay $$$$$$ to buy the software to make a file, tell us what you need made? and send a picture? and we spread the word and the file is made and sent to you, we show you how to do it in the program you have or what we had to use to make it. We now make movies on how it was done, real simple to follow.

I am getting ready to post a lot of ready to cut 3d file soon, I just need to get the info on the size and depth and who made them and with what program.

I am thinking of storing over 20 gigs of 2d and 3d files on the server with pictures, this will be a 1 stop shoping for files in dxf format, they can then be downloaded free for members.

We have members that send in 20 to 30 3d files a week, some are real nice work.

Ron

[douglashahn]

Ron,

What is the Server Address?

Douglas

[rgengrave@aol.com]

You can get to the server here, but you will need to be a member to get in, you can check out the sample server to see how it is layed out, I do not update the sample site so you will not see all the new things added.

http://www.rngengravers.com

Ron

[joseph]

I have a casmate basic and a signwizard pro.
my sign wizard pro has a 3d function for routing, How can I use this directly to shopbot driver to route.., since signwizzard has no G code convertion

I use my casmate for designing logos,Is there a shortcut way to rout this without going to vector.

thanks

[danhamm@abccom.bc.ca]

Joseph,
Export your files from the programs as DXF.files
and use the shopbot converter to create sbp.files
make sure your text is converted to lines or curves or the export filter from your programs
will do a tearing line thingy with the files..