So Bobcad has been hitting me with the hard sell these last few weeks. A while back I contacted them asking about what kind of nesting I can do with Bobcad/Bobnest and they've been calling me constantly about their software, offering discounts, etc.

I have a natural inclination to, well, not believe salesmen, especially the ones who work the hard sell. I'd really like to have a nesting program for my plasma table and it would save me a lot of time...but quotes I've gotten from MTC and sigmanest are 10-20 times the price of bobcad. I'm not going to pay any software company for three years worth of saved time.

So these guys at bobcad keep telling me that their software will do what I want, but I just don't believe them. I need nesting of irregular shapes on plates. They won't provide a workable demo and are unwilling to produce the G-code I need to test on my machine. In fact, their "demo" that you can download wont even open most of my .dxf files. Their response to that issue was, "...well, if you bought the whole package it will work." Uh huh...sure.


Has anyone out there used bobcad/bobnest to produce nests for their cnc tables? Potentially this saves me a couple of hours a week in nesting by hand...worth $1000ish? Sure. Worth $15,000? (MTC,Sigma,etc) Not a chance.

Save your money :)
I had the hard sell and fell for it after they assured me it would be the best thing since sliced bread.......
Bobnest is slow and worse of all produces poor nesting results.
I have tried every setting on it, but it still does not get anywhere near to my other nesting package :(
There does not appear to be a usable post processor available for plasma cutting, the existing one 'Z' references on every pierce which adds hours to a production run :(

Andy

Read there return policy.
Your satisfaction is not guaranteed and they will not refund your money after you realize how terrible their software is.

I read MANY posts on how bad Bob CAD is. I bought it anyway. I am SO glad I did, I think it is a fantastic piece of software at a very reasonable price. I did get v23, though, which I understand is WAY better than V22 and older. It perfectly does what I need it to do, which is great GCode for my 3D models (I design them in SolidWorks).

That said, I have zero experience or need for BobNest, so I can't give any input on that, but don't listen to the naysayers if they haven't used v23. Good luck in finding someone who can address your questions with BobNest, and I hope you find a useable solution.

Norm,

What post processor are you using? Also, can you post an example of what you get and what you would like to get? I can help you with the posting side of things rather quickly.

Regarding the nesting results: There will be some differences in the results between systems, because they all use variations of a nesting algorithm. If you have a part or group of parts that you are wanting to get a beeter result for, post the BobNest file here and we can look at it. There may be something that can be done to improve the quality of the results.

Regards

The upfront costs of nesting software can be a real issue for many people (especially if you only need it once in a while). I am hoping that our new automatic nesting software, MyNesting, will finally bring affordable but powerful irregular shape nesting to the masses! It can be found at www.mynesting.com

The software runs on your own PC like any other nesting software and will always be free to download and use. It works via dxf files so you can import part files and export the nested layouts using dxfs. Eventually, we will start charging a small fee each time a nest is exported (we have to feed the family!) but, as its new concept and we want people using it, it'll be free at least for the first few months.

Hope you find the software useful and please get in touch with any feedback so we can keep improving it.

Glenn

Interesting...I'm going to try that out next time I get a chance to play.

I just downloaded this software and am running a nest job right now. Very simple so far...and more importantly, the pricing seems perfect for a shop like ours. I've talked to sigma-nest and MFC (? some hypertherm subsidiary) and they both wanted something like 5 to 10 grand. $5-10 a nest for mynesting (may change?) is perfect for me.

$5-10 a nest for mynesting (may change?) is perfect for me.

Thanks for trying it out and I'm glad your initial impressions are good. I don't see the cost increasing anytime soon (we may even look to reduce costs if the volume of users is there).

Glenn