Originally Posted by
posthocfallacy
I hope the BobCAD guys are looking at this thread and see this post. Al Depaulo (might not be spelled correctly) is on here. I have seen his posts somewhere. He has been at BobCAD for some time. When I decided to get serious about a CNC router, I bought a SparkFun Inventors Kit that has a robot and an Arduino. It is aimed at getting experience with the Arduino and various sensors. Servos and steppers are part of the experiments that are in the kit, as are various sensors that could be used for home sensing, over-travel, etc. After looking at several posts, I came to the conclusion that I needed to build the moving mechanism first so that I could measure the forces needed to move various assemblies and the masses of each. From that, I could determine what torque would be required for a given acceleration and what speeds I could achieve. All aimed at selecting a proper stepper and linear motion system without oversizing everything.
I use SolidWorks where I am employed, and they offer a Home Use License Agreement (HULA) that allows you to put SW on your computer at home, and use the license from work. It checks every 10 minutes or so to make sure that the license is not in use at work and allows home use as long as no none is trying to use the license at work. For the router, however, I didn't want to be saddled with SolidWorks because I can't afford the price of the software, $5 to 6K, with $800 to 1200 yearly maintenance. I don't recommend using SW without the maintenance, because in 2009, SW sold out to Dessault Systems, a French company that evidently hates users. In 2006, I called tech support about twice a year. Now, I call them twice a day at times. Tech support is great and usually help me out, but there are times when I discover a bug in the software, that they report. It NEVER gets fixed! Even on the next release it is often not fixed. Their "Knowledge Base" has a list of all outstanding service requests that more often than not say, "No planned date for resolution of this request has been set." Sorry, I didn't mean to have this turn into a SW Rant - this is about BobCAD!
So, I needed another CAD program to design my moving mechanisms. A friend uses BobCAD and likes it very much. He is a CNC lathe and mill expert and I trust his opinion. So, I went onto BobCAD's website and made the mistake of logging in as myself instead of some ficticious person, and downloaded the trial software. THE NEXT DAY, a Friday, I got a call from Nick Anderson at BobCAD in Florida, their home office. He said that since it was the end of the month he was trying to get another sale that would put him over the top for the Salesman of the Month award. My Son was a sales manager at a car dealership and I knew this was one of the tricks they used. I told Nick I was not interested since I hadn't even tried the software yet. I had just downloaded it the night before. He had a great deal: $1200 worth of software for only $500. No, Nick! Goodbye. I actually did use the software over the weekend and thought it was not bad. Monday morning Nick called again. If I buy today, he would lower the price to $400, include a years worth of maintenance, include the tutorial CD, and a 45 day money back guarantee. "You know Nick, I just can't do it." He asked if I would do it if it was $100. I actually had $100 and said OK. He said, "I can't go that low, but you can have it all for $200 if you NEVER tell anyone that you go it for that amount." So, I went over the list of things that I had to have to be sure that the software would work the way I thought it should. Specifically, I told him that I needed to be able to design my system with it, then make models for cutting on the router and generate g-code from the model. He assured me that it would do exactly that, so I agreed to $225: $200 for the software and $25 shipping.
A week later, I got the package and started on the tutorials. Well over 50 exercises, possibly 100. I got though about 30 of them, and found nothing for assemblies, so I actively searched for assembly models. None to be found. I sent an email to tech support saying that I couldn't find tutorials on assemblies. The response was:
Dave,
BobCAD is not designed to build assemblies. If you build them, you would have to manually position and rotate them. We have no mating system in BobCAD to accomadate building assemblies.
Regards,
Sean Daugherty
Technician
BobCAD-CAM Inc.
Phone: (727) 489-0003
Fax: (727) 734-8239
So, I called Nick, told him that the software would not work and I wanted a refund. He said that I had to fill out the refund request form and transfered me to someone in the refund department. It turns out that they will give you a refund ONLY if the software doesn't function the way it says in the "refund policy" which I hadn't read. The refund lady told me that I could write a letter to the refund committee, stating the reasons that I wanted a refund and they would decide if I could get it. Two weeks later they said I could get my money back, minus a 20% "restocking" fee. It costs them $40 to put the CD back on the shelf? So I sent the CDs back via FedEx (I don't trust UPS or the USPS) via 2-day air, $29, so they could have it Monday and I would know exactly when they received it. A week later I got an email saying that I would be receiving my refund of $160 in 7 - 10 business days. Two weeks later I called the woman in charge of refunds. She was out for the day and I left a message that my refund was late. Two more weeks later I left another identical message. Another two weeks, same recording on voice mail I called the main office number to find out that the refund lady was no longer with BobCAD. I was sent to her replacement who said she would take care of it. I told her to send it some way that she could track it. She said she would. A week later, I called and she said, "the check is in the mail." OK, what is the tracking number? Oh, we don't send things except via the postal service. It finally arrived THREE WEEKS LATER! I called twice each week, and she was very irritated that I was questioning her about the check. I promise you it is in the mail. Turns out, she sat on it for two weeks an mailed Monday of the third week. The check had a date 14 days before the postmark when I finally did receive it.
There is a post on the zone about dealing with Chinese businesses, and making sure you have EVERYTHING in Writing! Do the same with BobCAD. I won't be purchasing any of their products ever again. They continue to send me emails, but I have blocked the sender, and they go immediately to junk mail. I don't even see them unless I look at what I am deleting.
Re: So let me get this right about Bobcad.....
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Spend an extra 4 grand and get Mastercam for a better 2D CAD.
