URGENT - BobCAM-CAD, A deal or not?

[Analias]

Usually I don't respond well to folks saying a decision has to be made by tomorrow, but this seems to be a good deal.

I got a call from BobCAD this morning after downloading their demo last night. I was offered $1250 for two seats of their V24 CAD/CAM package. The hitch is I have to do this by the end of the day tomorrow (20 April). It's suppose to be part of a tax season deal.

A CNC doesn't do much if you don't have tools to design projects and generate tool paths. It seems I can easily spend more money on the software than I can on the hardware. I'm a hobbyist and I want good tools, but cannot afford SolidWorks (drool) or other "professional" design tools.

BobCAD seems like a good compromise between price and function. Is this a deal? Is anyone else using BobCAD and for what types of projects?

If you are wondering why two seats. I have a monster PC I use for software development and design and a smaller PC I will drive the CRP4848 with. They are both capable of running BobCAD easily. They are in different locations and I would like to be able to make design changes from the machine if needed.

[dneisler]

I would say bad.....


Quote from a email from BC....

"I can do the V24 bob cad mill pro for the $400. If you wanted the plug
in(Solidworks) the best I can do is $495 cause of our contract with them"

[Analias]

dneisler, Do you have a date on that quote? I may try to use to drop the price.

Did you buy BobCAD and if so, are you happy with it?

[dneisler]

I have not purchased as I have been short on cash so far. Here is the last email I got form BC on 12/30/11. As you can see they came down to $300.

"Om here till 330 today. I spoke with the boss and talked him down to 300
for the 24 mill pro if you want to buy today"

[jb-cnc]

Are you going to do a lot of true 3d parts?

[Analias]

Are you going to do a lot of true 3d parts?

Define "true 3d". Do you mean as apposed to 2.5d?

Some of the first projects I want to do are milling parts for 3d printers out of plastic and/or aluminum.

[holbieone]

Usually I don't respond well to folks saying a decision has to be made by tomorrow, but this seems to be a good deal.

I got a call from BobCAD this morning after downloading their demo last night. I was offered $1250 for two seats of their V24 CAD/CAM package. The hitch is I have to do this by the end of the day tomorrow (20 April). It's suppose to be part of a tax season deal.

A CNC doesn't do much if you don't have tools to design projects and generate tool paths. It seems I can easily spend more money on the software than I can on the hardware. I'm a hobbyist and I want good tools, but cannot afford SolidWorks (drool) or other "professional" design tools.

BobCAD seems like a good compromise between price and function. Is this a deal? Is anyone else using BobCAD and for what types of projects?

If you are wondering why two seats. I have a monster PC I use for software development and design and a smaller PC I will drive the CRP4848 with. They are both capable of running BobCAD easily. They are in different locations and I would like to be able to make design changes from the machine if needed.

"The hitch" what a way to do Business BobCAD , pressure the guy into buying your product before he even has a chance to evaluate it

tell them you'll call in a few weeks and they better have a better offer !

[jm82792]

I saw a copy with the usb dongle for $80 sell on ebay. I was going to buy it/bid on it but it almost seems Meshcam works better in some ways for the CAM portion. There are a few on ebay right now, license and all for under $300. Might be able to scoop one for under $100 if you're lucky.

[davidmb]

I would recommend taking a look at meshcam, I've being using it for about 3 years now without issue (very good support too) , I use Alibre personal edition to do the design work (but you could use any 3d cad that can output stl files) , I run all this on a high end pc, out of this I get an NC file that I just load onto the CNC controller pc. Having to buy two seats seems a bit excessive as you wouldn't want to use the CNC controller pc to do design work. There are quite a few solutions out there that you can mix and match for an awful lot less.

Would expect to be able to test/evaluate a product for a couple of weeks, getting 24 hrs would really put me off big time, assuming that this is their ( nicely nicely sales pitch - hate to think how they may be once you have bought the product and want support / help ).

[RossMosh]

My rule of thumb is if a software company has a sales team, they probably aren't someone you want to deal with.

[keebler303]

My rule of thumb is if a software company has a sales team, they probably aren't someone you want to deal with.

Or how they start at a high price and then will gradually drop the price to whatever you will pay. Everyone pays a different price, depends on how much of a sucker/tightwad you are.

Or how they will continue to cold call you incessantly.

[lovebugjunkie]

Know you are not asking about other software but a friend of mine was running BobCad and was trying to get me to switch to it. He gave me a overview of it on the pc for about an hour. After that I ask him if I could give him a short look at the software I run. Next day he bought a license for VcarvePro. And no I did not get Bobcad. We both do this as a hobby and that told me all I wanted to know about Bobcad.