Need Help!- Looking back... would you "upgrade" to ver22.?(2007)

[msomerville]

I have been thinking about upgrading. I'm on ver21. What would you guys do?
There is so much negative feedback about the new version that I don't want to take that leap. What do the great minds think?

[COMMAND JOHN]

Yes upgrade to Onecnc. XR3

John

[nlh]

I second that.

[msomerville]

Were you guys using Bobcad before that?

[Malish]

I still use both versions. Depending on what I am programing it's sometimes eaiser to use the old version to step through and program by hand. I use the new version when I have more complicated stuff and have to use tool offsets.

[COMMAND JOHN]

Yes v22 and back.

[nlh]

Started with V20, then V21 and then V22.

[msomerville]

What didn't you guys like about the new version that made you jump ship?

[nlh]

Well, I haven't jumped ship yet but am actively exploring other alternatives. Lack of V22 stability, functions that don't work properly, updates that don't fix the issues they were released to fix, lack of options on certain toolpaths, etc, etc are all reasons. This thread will probably get closed but what I speak is the truth.

[msomerville]

Why would they close this thread? I am not bashing. Just a long time Bobcad customer (since ver 17) trying to figure out if I should upgrade. With all of the issues that ver 22 had/has I am leary about purchasing the new version. Isn't that what these forums are for?

[smurph]

I have V21 and V22 and I never use V21. I bought V21 right before 2007 (V22) came out and I soon purchased the V22. So I never really used V21 all that much. To me, V22 is much more in line with other CAM offerings that I had dabbled with. I really liked the CAM tree paradigm with the ability to switch post processors on the fly since I have multiple controllers that I play with.

I find V22 to work like I think. The concept of "features" in the job and all.

I haven't had any issues with stability. I think that comes from the computer that it is installed on. Maybe BobCAD is not robust enough to handle some wacked out situations. But I have not had any problems installing it on a fresh Windows XP system with a decent video card.

The only thing that has really been an issue for me is the pocketing with islands problem. I work around it by using the Zig Zag pattern. It's enough for me and what I do but I can see how others would want more.

I wish that the post processor would include some sort of scripting for V22. I think the post processor is where most people get derailed and have "issues". I had to really do a lot of work to get v22 to post the right code for our less than standard controllers. Scripting would have made this a breeze.

Another thing is that v22 uses a lot of memory. We import a lot of huge mold or part models and you will hit the back of the processor and memory pretty quickly. Picking your geometry on parts like these is painful if you don't have a bunch of RAM. XP will use 3 gig if you have 4 gig installed. For bigger parts, I would suggest at least a 3 GHz processor with 4 Gig of RAM. RAM is cheaper than frustration. But, I would have to say that if you load the same part into V21, it's so slow that we can't even work with it. So V22 seems to be an improvement in this area.

Part rendering is much better in V22 as well. Although I don't do much drawing in V22, I find it to be easier than drawing in V21.

So would I upgrade from V21 to V22? If I had to do it all over again, yes. I like it for the money I spent. Is it perfect? No. But when the pocketing issue goes away and if scripting ever gets into the post processor, I think it will be nice. But if you were used to V21 and lower, V22 will give you headaches. It just operates differently. It's probably better if you never had any prior version experience. I use our v22 more than the guys that had used the earlier versions. I think this is because I just never really learned V21. But they just can't seem to move away and I can understand that. They just know what they want to do and they know how to do it in the earlier versions.

Steve

[COMMAND JOHN]

Why would you buy a program they may be able to fix in 6 to 12 more months.

I would never buy a program you have to put the thing (contour) on top of your geometry to select direction of cut and if you don’t like that direction you have to go to utilities to reverse direction.

Cutter comp will not work in pocketing they took it out it was so bad.

If you ramp in a pocket it will pickup and plunge in other spot in the pocket.

I’m not bashing V22 I paid for a working program.

John