BOBCAD ISSUES

[ZZMACH1]

Bobcad

Interested in knowing if anyone has used Bobcad. I have purchased version 22 and have not had any luck with it. Sales people guaranteed that they had a post for our Hurco VM1 Mill and it was no problem. Did a Demo online with a tech and also stated that they had a post for that machine and he was familiar with it. But it does not work. Customer Service has pretty much given me a run around and told me they did not have a post for version 22 for my machine. I gave them the files, G & M Codes from Manufacturer that they requested on 2 occasions about 3 weeks ago and was confirmed by the posting department that they received them and then I received an email yesterday stating that they would need files and info for making a post for my machine. Has anyone had any simililar experiences with them? Or any good experiences with this company.
Thanks Steve
onecam@comcast.net

[tjones]

I run V22 and have very good luck. I mostly use it on 3D work but still have ran most of the 2D functions.

I had very good support but I also modified my own post from an existing Fanuc post. Bobcad helped me with it since there were no instructions available at the time. Very fast and helpful tech support. I never had an issue with them. We also have our support maintenance paid up from our previous version as well.

It is not perfect but it is very good. The simulation does great as well. However I do have the full version from when it was 2007 with everything they offered then.

[03cobra]

I have used Bobcad/Bobwire for several years. Never had to many problems. If I did I would call Bob and he always seemed to help me out.

[smurph]

Getting the post processor done can be a painful experience, to say the least. I've done it 4 times for 2 different controllers. Each for v19 and v22. You have to stay on top of them. They loose the info and repeatedly ask for it again, just like you have discovered. Maybe an internal communication problem or people just passing the buck? They say 4 to 6 weeks for the post. But that is only after you fax them the information several times. Just fax it to them once a week.

Don't expect them to magically come up with the perfect post the first time through either. I don't fault BobCad for this as making a post for a machine that you don't have access to is a tough gig. You have to work with them. Test, go back to them with the results, and go another round. Like I said, painful.

Eventually, your post will get to Scott Phillips (The master of all things post processor related) and you will have smooth sailing from there. Great guy.

But you can do yourself a favor and start learning the post processor. In the end, only you can tweak it just right for your machine. With v22, it's pretty easy. MillEditPost.exe is used for a graphical editor or you can edit the text files in notepad. There is not much documentation (something that I would like to see changed) on the post processor, but you can figure most of it out or post here with problems.

The post processor is the hardest thing to get through. After that, I have found that the support is great. If I don't get to talk to them when I dial them up, a return call usually comes in less than an hour.

For me, 3D works great! Much better than previous versions for 3D.

2D works well too with a couple of exceptions. 1) If you don't use cutter offsets (G41, G42), you have a hard time getting a climbing toolpath with a left hand offset for some reason. You need to edit the profile feature and choose offset left (none) BEFORE you pick the geometry! And sometime that doesn't work. You just have to work a bit deleting the feature and trying different combinations until something clicks and it does the right thing. 2) pockets with multiple internal islands won't work with anything other than ZigZag (lace). 3) no ramp, only plunge.

It's fine for hobbyist like myself, but those 2D bugs would drive me insane if I were trying to do some real production. The Basic simulation does fine for my purposes.

If you haven't gotten the training CDs, I would suggest that you do. It will save you a bunch of frustration in the end. Learning how to use BobCad solves most problems that you will run into with it. Making arcs tangential (utilities menu) before creating your tool paths is an example. Even better is the training classes that Sorin does. A couple of the guys where I work went to one of his classes and came back capable of working through most anything. I wish I could have gone myself.

Steve

[68sixspeed]

Any update? just curious, I'm trying to get a post working for the VM-1 and VM-2 Hurco controls too!

[frankee]

Hi,

I also purchased BobCAD (V22) a couple of weeks ago, and it's pretty dissapointing - too be polite: it's trash. V22 has dozens of obvious bugs, including crashing under a number of reproducable conditions -it seems as though BobCAD did not even trial test this program before releasing it.

The CAM portion is somewhat usable, but the CAD portion is a million miles behind even some freeware CAD programs. This leads to the suggestion that BobCAD should bascially ditch the CAD part of the program and instead integrate a third party CAD program (as they did with Preditor for simulation). This would allow them to concentrate on the CAM portion of the software, fixing, testing and growing those functions - that iis BobCAD's strength (if any).


I purchased BobCAD over another similarly priced foreign package to support the North American economy, but I really regret it. In fact, when I look closely at this program I think I recognize the style of off-shore contract programmers - and even if not, this program is way to quirky by our standards and practices.

The support is great as everyone else has pointed out. But I wonder whether the support would need to be so good if the program and its documentation was not so poorly written and sparse.

I would not recommend BobCAD to anyone - but I'm stuck with it for the time being.

My hope is that there is some benefit to the "scripting" that is mentioned in the sales literature. Unfortunately, I can't find any details about it in either the help system or the manual .Can anyone point me to information regarding the scripting function?
Cheers,
Frank

[frankee]

Hi Again,

Here's a little example of why you don't want to purchase BobCAD. This is from a small program it posted this morning. If you look carefully you will find that the program selects a tool (T28), turns on the coolant, turns off the spindle - then plunges into the material. Nice.


%
O100
(902JIG1.NC)
( MACH 3 - ENGLISH)
(TUE. 03/04/2008 12:42PM)
( T1 ENDMILL ROUGH , DIAMETER = .5 , LENGTH = 5.)
( T2 ENDMILL ROUGH , DIAMETER = .125 , LENGTH = 5.)
N01 G20 G49 G54 G80 G90
(JOB 1 POCKET)
N02 M06 T28
(TOOL #28 0.5000 ENDMILL ROUGH)
N03 M05 <------- Spindle off.
N04 G00 G54 X1.2472 Y-1.1274
N05 G43 H28 Z.1
N06 M08
N07 G01 Z-.0625 <----------------- Plunge with spindle off.
N08 M98 P10 ( SUBPROGRAM CALL )
N09 G00 Z.1
N10 M09
(JOB 2 CONTOUR)
N11 M06 T22
(TOOL #22 0.1250 ENDMILL ROUGH)
N12 M03 S5011 <--- With this tool it's OK though
N13 G54 X3.8125 Y-.8575
N14 G43 H22 Z.1
N15 M08
N16 G01 Z-.063 F20.0459
N17 M98 P11 ( SUBPROGRAM CALL )
N18 G00 Z.1
N19 M09
(JOB 2 CONTOUR)
N20 M06 T28
(TOOL #28 0.1250 ENDMILL FINISH)
N21 M03 S4500
N22 G54 X3.8125 Y-.8475
N23 G43 H28 Z.1
N24 M08
N25 G01 Z-.063
N26 M98 P12 ( SUBPROGRAM CALL )
N27 G00 Z.1
N28 M05
N29 M09
N30 G49 G91 Z0.
N31 M30
%
-- subroutines omitted - they do not contain tool control.

As an added bonus you may notice that the tool numbers called up at the top of the program have nothing to do with the actual tool numbers used in the program.

[The One]

frankee,

1) The code that you are generating is wrong. But it is wrong because the post is either an old post that was included with the original installation or because the post has been modified. I have attached a sample program generated for pocketing a square. You will see in the file that the M03 and S callouts are in the correct order as to not crash the tool.

2) The tool numbers are currently an internal identifier. If you wish for the tool numbers the system posts to be different you can do it this way:

1. Right click on Milling Tools. 2. Left click on the Verify Tool Assignment option. 3. Uncheck the "Use Automatic Tool Numbering option". 4. Double click on the Tool Number you wish to change. 5. Input the desired tool number in the field to the lower right of the tool list. 6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for all of the tools you wish to change. 7. Click OK. 8. Repost the program.

3) "including crashing under a number of reproducable conditions". If you would like to email those steps/conditions for reproducing this crash to the support@bobcad.com email address that would be great. I would like to see what these conditions are so that we can address them. Without those steps/conditions though, we would be unable to find a good solution.

4) Scripting was supported by the older systems Version 18 through 21. Scripting provided another avenue for those wanting a fully customizable operations and functions, but was discontinued in the new system.

I look forward to your response.

Regards

[frankee]

Thanks for your response TheOne.

I have found 3 or 4 crash conditions, this one has cost me the most time:

--> Open a drawing of file type dwg - works good - now press save - program crashes. The program does not check that the file has been (converted and) saved as a "save as" bbcd file before trying to save it. This must cause a memory error somewhere in the save routine.

Why is this important? When you bring in a dwg from another CAD package, then set it up for CAM (forgetting to save it as a BBCD) and press save - shibang - work lost. I guess I'm pretty simple because this has happened to me a number of times .

I will add the other conditions as I detail them for you.

With regards to the tool problem - I have not tested it thoroughly, but I suspect the problem may be that I set tool T22 to "manual" setup instead of "system" (in the Tool dialog), and this may have been saved as a program default, and since nothing was set on the T28 tool for manual parameters it ended up ignoring it - (that's just a guess though).

Here's another quick one for you: press "Milling Tools", then select the "Tools" menu item. The "Milling Tool Menu" dialog opens up - now press the "Help" button - does your program do anything? This is the case for some of the other dialogs too.

Here's a real nuisance (in my opinion). Right click in the drawing to activate the pop-up context menu. The "OK" and "CANCEL" buttons are not grayed out (disabled). Why? If there is no command active these should be disabled because it is very confusing. I have found that a command has completed or aborted, and I'm busy clicking away at the OK button and nothing happens - it should be disabled when it does not do anything - that's pretty well standard on Windows based programs.

More to follow....

[The One]

--> Open a drawing of file type dwg - works good - now press save - program crashes. The program does not check that the file has been (converted and) saved as a "save as" bbcd file before trying to save it. This must cause a memory error somewhere in the save routine.

I have tried this with every 3 of supported format and have not been able to generate the same error you indicate. What system are you using to create the dwg files? Also, do you have another program accessing the file at the time you are trying to save it? There are many different things that could be the catalyst to the problem.

Here's another quick one for you: press "Milling Tools", then select the "Tools" menu item. The "Milling Tool Menu" dialog opens up - now press the "Help" button - does your program do anything? This is the case for some of the other dialogs too.

This is known. There were several dialog ID's that were unknown at the time that the Help files were getting built. These are being fixed as time permits. There are actually 25,000+ individual help IDs in the system.

Here's a real nuisance (in my opinion). Right click in the drawing to activate the pop-up context menu. The "OK" and "CANCEL" buttons are not grayed out (disabled). Why? If there is no command active these should be disabled because it is very confusing. I have found that a command has completed or aborted, and I'm busy clicking away at the OK button and nothing happens - it should be disabled when it does not do anything - that's pretty well standard on Windows based programs.

I understand what you are saying here. The Cancel and OK options are used for most of the functions in the system and as such they were not intended to be used as indicators of active functions. Instead the Data Entry dialog and the prompt lines(bottom left hand corner) were intended to be used to determine a function is active. I can make a suggestion, but that is how it was intended to be used.

Regards

[68sixspeed]

I'm glad to see someone chiming in to help, but I think the Bobcam 2007 and then v22 products were released way too early and too loose. We bought it at Eastech last may and still can't get it working properly with our Hurco VM1 and VM2 machines.

[The One]

68sixspeed,

Have you called support? If they have not been able to help, what type of problems are you having?

Regards