Kcdw, cabinet pro, ecabinets? Which one?

[dray]

My cnc will arrive this month. I just cant see shelling out $15k for kcdw then another few for a conversion prog. I have been using KCDW for 6 years (base, base, model) I like it but refuse to pay the high prices they are asking to upgrade for cnc.

Are there any other alternatives, any at all for kcdw? Some other software upgrade? or any other low cost solutions?

[billp]

Danny,
You might want to check out Cabinet Parts Pro which is a very slick cabinet making program written by a Shopbotter, Ryan Patterson. There are a number of 'Bot owners using this already with great results. If you "search" for info on the Forum you can get more info...

[thewoodcrafter]

I hope you find one because I need one too.
You can't use e-cabinets (Thermwood only)
Cabinet Pro has booted ShopBot (Not supported anymore)
Cabinet Parts Pro is cheap but very limited.
KCDW is $8000 from what I saw.
I looked at a few others. Most had a separate design package then the CNC package was an add on but all that I found are $8000 and up.

[mgcain]

Let me ask this...would it be of any value to import a cut list from ecabinets, match the cabinets names up to a library of cabinets, and produce shopbot code from that list?

[thewoodcrafter]

Mitch,
I don't understand what you are suggesting.
Import into what? And produce code with what?

[patricktoomey]

A little over a year ago I wrote a program that took the cabinet lists from Cabinet Vision and generated SBP code. I have since switched to eCabinets from Thermwood and altered my importer to take their output. In the meantime I also changed to an Ascension controller so I now generate G-Code instead of ShopBot code but I could re-write the output back to SBP I suppose. I have cut parts for many hundreds of cabinets with it since then, tweaking it and adding features as needed.

I have been tempted to sell the software for some reasonable price but I don't know if there is enough demand to warrant it. My software basically takes a list of cabinets from eCabinet Systems (could be tweaked to take lists from any software) or you can just add them in one by one. You can edit the cabinet properties, give them names, etc. You can also add individual parts like panels and specify cutouts in any part. It then generates the parts, calculates dados, rabbets, shelf holes, etc. It optimizes them onto as few sheets as possible and then generates the G Code for each page along with printed diagrams of the sheet layout and sheets of part labels to match. It is fully configurable by altering some XML files to allow for different styles of construction, etc. But it has only been used for my construction techniques so far and is not polished at all. If there are a couple of dozen people willing to spend maybe $200 for something like this it would be worth me polishing it up and throwing it out there along with documentation on how to edit the XML files for customization. If anyone is interested, let me know. Based on response from this thread I may make a new post showing details of how it works and some screenshots to see if there is enough interest out there.

[Ryan Patterson]

Cabinetpartspro will import from a text file or an Excel file. Most design packages will export a list of cabinet/parts. You can then import into Cabinetpartspro to nest the parts and produce the cutting code. CabinetPartspro is already setup to import from some of the above listed design packages. If you have any questions you can email them to me.

[stockbub]

How come these major software companies are giving shopbot the boot? Makes me question what is happening with the company?

[patricktoomey]

Martin, I think Cabinet Pro is the only one that actually dropped ShopBot support. Based on the old threads that got somewhat heated and which I will not go into, it appeared to have nothing to do with any negatives about the ShopBot technically. There were some personal and ego issues from the other side I think. Their support of pure GCode should allow the GCode to ShopBot converter to work just fine. eCabinet Systems never supported anything but Thermwood routers which is why the software is given away free. That is the route I have gone. KCDW and Cabinet Vision both support ShopBot if you get their CNC output options and use the correct post processor. You will also find ShopBot post processors for just about any mid size and up software out there since there are TONS of ShopBots in use around the world.

[itoolfred]

Danny,
I really don't know which direction to point you... other than which direction not to go. We purchased Cabinetvision a year or so ago and no longer use. I've bumped into a couple of shops now that have dumped CabinetVision. When I was back at the Thermwood factory there were a couple shops in the class that had also dumped CabinetVision for ecabs. One shop was using MicroVellum w/autocad and like it, but it, too is a pricey alternative. I have both the Shopbot and the Thermwood machines in the shop and the eCabs software works very nicley linked to the CNC machine. We use the Shopbot for the intricate jobs and the Thermwood for most of the cabinet work... On the intricate cuts the Shopbot (Original PRT) is every bit as fast as the Thermwood. When you get into the 3D and small stuff you can only move that head so fast..

Patrick- I don't know how you got the eCabs output to work on the shopbot, but that is quite an accomplishment because the Rolling Nest on the controller does a lot of the work. I've tried looking into what you have done in the past and finally gave up.
Fred

[patricktoomey]

Fred, I'm not actually taking the eCabs output directly. I also looked at that and quickly realized it was probably not practical. What I've done is to take my cabinets from eCabs and recreate each type in my software including construction techniques. Then all I have to do is take the cabinet list text from eCabs and import that into my software. My software just needs to know what the cabinet type is (like wall, base, vanity, pantry, etc.) and the width, height and depth. It does the rest and calculates all the parts. This works very well although the limitation is that if you customize a cabinet in eCabs to do something like moving or adding a partition, my software won't know about it. Since I never do that sort of thing and instead have a library of every configuration I use, I have not had a problem with it.

[terryd]

Danny,
For presentations to the customers ECab allows a great walk through. The jpg output is priceless in nailing down the layouts and features. The cutlist and nesting are complete and I use them to generate Autocad drawings which in turn generate the toolpaths for the 'bot'. Included is a costing feature which I use to ballpark unusual layouts that don't conform to my usual dollars per linear foot quotes. If they wanted $10K for the program to run on the 'bot' I would buy it in a heartbeat. I am considering purchasing a Thermwood now because of their program and the support they give it. A dream team would be an alliance between Shopbot and Thermwood.

TerryD

[beacon14]

Patrick,

I'm very interested in your software. If it could be customized to the way I build cabinets it would be worth considerably more than $200 to me.

[patricktoomey]

David HOW MUCH more?


Yes, that is the main differentiator between my program and anything else I've seen. Each cabinet is defined in an XML file and can have any number of parts, each of which can have any number of CNC operations assigned to it. All CNC operations are specified as formulas so that they behave and scale correctly no matter what size the part is. Currently I have support for drilling (individual holes or definable hole arrays), dados (thru and stop), rabbeting (thru and stop), profile cuts (multi-pass with skinning), cutouts (rectangular or circular) and pocket hole lead-ins. I also use a third party nesting optimizer component that is probably the best in the world. It optimizes 50 cabinets worth of parts in about 30-45 seconds and I have yet to find a more efficient layout from any other program including some really expensive ones. Based on the e-mail I've received from this I think there is enough interest to proceed. I'll put together some screenshots and a feature list and post it separately in an appropriate area of the forum and we'll take it from there.

[itoolfred]

"A dream team would be an alliance between Shopbot and Thermwood." Terry, you don't know how right you are. My interaction with both of these companies is amazing. Both Shopbot and Thermwood bust their butts to make great products and support their products in the field. We have some German and Italian equipment in the shop and getting help or service parts for this equipment is impossible. I once waited for 2 months for a manual to be sent from Italy only to have it show up and be entirely in Italian.

[gene]

Danny,
Be aware cabnet pro does not support shopbot anymore.
Have you looked at cabinet parts pro from Ryan Patterson ?

[pfulghum]

I personally like BoxCutter, I'm the author



http://www.users.qwest.net/~pfulghum/

or

http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/show.cgi?tpc=31&post=32421#POST32421

-- pat

[dray]

Thanks Guys. Im toying with Cabinet parts pro but it keeps crashing on me every time I open settings

[Ryan Patterson]

Danny,
You have mail
Ryan