Reasons NOT to buy RhinoCAM!

[Dave's_Not_Here]

... reinforce a decision made.

I have Rhino 4.0 with all current updates and service packs. I have been looking for a "reasonable" 4th axis capable CAM package to compliment my laser scanner and CNC Router. Seems most companies require you to buy their "Mill" program at the most expensive level, if you want 4th axis capability. Few offer stand-alone 4th axis programs.

I am in contact with a number of vendors, each wanting to do an online demo. I downloaded RhinoCAM to test in advance. Now, mind you, I didn't like the fact that I have to purchase RhinoCAM 1.0 in order to then buy RhinoCAM 2.0. That would have had a significant impact on my decision process but what sealed the decision was the fact that, after numerous attempts, I could not get RhinoCAM to accept a simple change from MM to Inches. I was even willing to tolerate the occasional lock-up between Rhino and RhinoCAM... but not accepting a simple change from MM to Inch?! And this from a CAM package that touts the "benefits" of operating from "within Rhino."

I have AutoDesk Inventor, AutoCAD, Mechanical Desktop, Rhino, Flamingo, Aspire and a number of other programs. I believe I have reasonable expectations relative to what a program "should" do vs. what it does. I applaud those that have copies of RhinoCAM that work flawlessly first time, every time. May it continue to be so. Needless to say, I uninstalled the RhinoCAM plug-in and will continue my search.

All said, I use my AutoDesk QuickCAD more than any other program... and it only cost $49 seven years ago... go figure.

[MecSoft Support]

Ok, it looks like this thread seems to be collecting people who have some gripe against RhinoCAM either because of ignorance or malice or whatever other reason. I work in the Technical Support department at MecSoft and I would like to post a point by point rebuttal to Hirudin's original posting to dispel any erroneous notions about RhinoCAM 2.0.

I would also like to take this opportunity to state that our technical support is one of the best in the industry and we fully stand behind our products. I am proud to state categorically that Rhino + RhinoCAM 2.0 is the best value that you can get for your money in the CAD/CAM industry today.

Originally Posted by Hirudin This program is worse than freeware in MANY respects! Gee, I wish I didn't spend $900 on this thing. 1. For some reason, you cannot copy and paste toolpaths using Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V. Yes, apparently MecSoft hasn't really caught up to Windows 3.1 yet.

This is totally incorrect. Anybody can verify this by downloading our RhinoCAM demo from http://www.mecsoft.com/DownloadDemosc.shtml, loading a tutorials file that has Machining Operations (Mops) defined and going through this sequence.
Bring up the Mops Browser Window
Select a Mop and make sure it is highlighted
Press Ctrl + C
Press Ctrl + V
You should see another Mop with a -1 appended to its name. In fact before we used to append a (1) to the name when the user did this but having a ( or ) in the name of an operation caused problems with some old controllers and so we had to switch this to a -1. This functionality has been present in the product since its inception.

Originally Posted by Hirudin 2. You cannot undo changes made to your toolpaths. Even though the keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste are not enabled, accidentally hitting the delete key will permanently erase your work.

Deleting a Mop will put the Mop in the clipboard. You can then retrieve the operation by doing a right click and paste operation. Or a Ctrl + V will also work – irrespective of what was stated in item 1 above.

Originally Posted by Hirudin 3. Loading tools is cumbersome. Tool Libraries can be saved into two different types of files for some reason. The standard type does not save the tools' speeds and feeds (of course, RhinoCAM doesn't warn you about this). If you want to really save your library you need to use the other file format.

This is there for legacy reasons. In RhinoCAM 1.0 we did not save feeds/speeds in the tool library. In 2.0 we have introduced this feature but decided to keep the old format around so our 1.0 users would be able to load these old libraries and save them in the new format. This older format will be phased out in our next release.

Originally Posted by Hirudin 4. Toolpath creation methods do not work. Check out this thread on the RhinoCAM forum where I pointed this out to them... http://www.mecsoft.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=6276

As you can see in the thread we tried to contact Hirudin without avail. For some reason he does not want to directly deal with us – which would have made a lot of sense in this case since we were trying to understand why he was having so much trouble with the software. Trying to figure out what he wanted our system to do without information, as any reasonable person can see from this thread, is near impossible. That is why we offer FREE phone support to all our customers. We love hearing from our customers and the more information we have the better we can help you. So pick up the phone and give us a call if the support we offer through our Support Forums is not helping you.

Originally Posted by Hirudin 5a. The software is buggy. I've had Rhino crash on me about 6 times while working with RhinoCAM. I've never had it crash before. Recently a new bug has shown up where it DOES NOT SAVE YOUR WORK about 50% of the time.

This is blatantly untrue. We cannot duplicate this nor have we heard of this from our customers. This is such a fundamental feature of the product that I am sure we would have heard from at least one other customer from our thousands of customers around the world about this problem if it indeed was a problem.

Originally Posted by Hirudin 5b. They only seem to update RhinoCAM when a new version of Rhino is released.

Incorrect again, we have released 2 Service Packs for RhinoCAM 1.0 and have released 2 Service Packs for RhinoCAM 2.0. We are currently readying another Service Pack for release.

Originally Posted by Hirudin 6. Bug reports are met with hostility and insults. Check the thread linked above for which I was banned from the MecSoft "Support" Forum. Unfortunately you cannot see pictures posted to the MecSoft forum unless you log in. If anyone is interested, I can re-post the pictures here.

This statement is once again as far from the truth as possible. Our customer support is unparalleled in the industry and we do whatever is reasonably possible to help our customers out. After all we will not be in business without them. We understand this and take this responsibility seriously. However all we ask for from our customers is to help us help him/her. Without this cooperation from the customer we will not be able to do this. Accusing us of hostility is not only untrue but also insulting.

Originally Posted by Hirudin 7. Tool selection is artificially limited. For instance Drilling operations only allow you to select drills and center drills from your tool library. At first this may make sense. But if you're like me and use a "vee mill" to do your spot drilling you're out of luck.

This is a deliberate design decision on our part. To maintain system integrity we do not resort to quick and dirty solutions even if it might make sense to a “power” user. Decisions such as these are what makes a system unwieldy to use in the long run - if you pack enough of these into a system.
As an alternative, you can use a V mill and use our engraving option and select a point as your geometry and perform drilling this way with a milling tool. You can even use multiple depth of cuts to simulate peck drilling if you so desire. Another way of doing this is to use the same tool number in a drill tool and use the drilling operation if you desire cycles to come out. The post-processor only looks at the tool number and does not check the type of tool used.

Originally Posted by Hirudin 8. The user interface is unrefined.

This is a debatable point. There are many users who love our interface and would not trade it for products such as BobCADCAM or MasterCAM.

Originally Posted by Hirudin For instance, the MOp (machine operations) creation interface is "always on top" (meaning the window is displayed above all other windows, regardless if Rhino is the active program or not. Even minimizing the main Rhino window will not get rid of the MOp creation dialog, neither do clicking the "Show Desktop" button in Windows 7 nor does hitting "WinKey + D" on the keyboard.

This was a put in based on a user request. However a few users have complained about this and so we have reverted back to the old behavior. This has already been fixed and will show up in our next service pack.

Originally Posted by Hirudin Another curious UI decision is that MecSoft did not include a way to access the speeds and feeds calculator from the tool creation dialog. If you're in the middle of creating a new tool and you'd like to use the calculator to enter all the different speeds automatically you have to... Save the tool (even though at the moment it's incomplete) Create a new MOp (yes, the only way to get to the calculator is through the MOp dialog) Go into the speeds and feeds tab Click the "Load From Table" button Struggle with the poorly made calculator to get the parameters you want THEN Open your newly created tool again Manually copy all the values from the MOp to the tool Save the tool again See attached picture

This is a good point. We will make the feeds/speeds calculator available from the tool creation dialog in our upcoming release.

Originally Posted by Hirudin 9. The simulation mode is very inaccurate, too fast, and too slow - all at the same time. Inaccurate - The virtual part is very rough. Sometimes areas that should be round are completely square. Arcs and diagonals are jagged. The display is enough to determine if a profile cut is on the correct side of the line, but not a whole lot more. Too Fast - Sometimes the simulation will complete instantly leaving you wondering just how the part will be cut. If you're watching the simulation to find out in what order features are milled you may be out of luck. Too Slow - When the part "stock" is displayed it slows my machine to a crawl. My computer isn't the fastest in the world but it's no slouch (Intel Core2Quad @ 2.4GHz (Q6600), 4 GB of DDR3 RAM, nVidia GTX280 video card (1 GB of video memory), OCZ Vertex SSD, running Windows 7 RC1 x64, 2560x1600 display). I get approximately six frames per second when the stock is displayed.

There are settings in the simulation preferences dialog that the user can set to alleviate all of these issues. In addition to this, if simulation quality is important, we offer two separate 2 simulation algorithms/modes in our product. The use of the right mode in appropriate situations is important for obtaining the desired results.

Originally Posted by Hirudin 10. The program has very few options. The few options it does have will sometimes they'll inexplicably revert to their default settings - without warning. Sometimes my post processor setting will jump to the top of the list, for seemingly no reason. I've also had the "Output arc/spiral/helix as linear segments" options seemingly randomly reselect themselves.

Our product has one of the richest feature sets in the industry and in our price range, it has THE richest feature set. So this statement shows a lack of understanding of the market as well as the available features in our product.
Also the settings that the user is talking about are saved in the registry and will not “randomly” change. It is possible that these settings were not saved due to a crash out of Rhino and so these settings were not saved in the registry.

Originally Posted by Hirudin 11. The program checks for updates EVERY TIME IT'S OPENED. This process needs administrator privileges for some reason which means if you're using Vista or Windows 7 you need allow/disallow a UAC window every time the program starts (depending on your UAC settings of course) just to reconfirm MecSoft has not released any updates ([i]see 5b above[/b]).

You can turn this off if you don’t want the program to check for updates every time the program launches. In fact there is a check box right on the dialog that asks if the user wants to do this every time or not. I am not sure why this user missed this.

Originally Posted by Hirudin 12. Features that were present in RhinoCAM version 1.0 Basic have been removed from RhinoCAM version 2.0 Standard. Want to edit your toolpaths like you did with the old version? That'll be another $3199 to upgrade to PRO.

This is again an incorrect statement. If we did this, it would not go over very well with our existing customers. Quite to the contrary we have updated and enhanced almost ALL methods that were available in the .10 product. In addition to this we have added new methods such as Spiral and Radial machining in RhinoCAM 2.0 STD version. These methods were only available in the PRO configuration in RhinoCAM version 1.0. So I fail to see what the customer is complaining about here. A specific example would help us get to the bottom of this claim.


Technical Support Department
MecSoft Corporation
support@mecsoft.com

[MecSoft Support]

Originally Posted by Dave's_Not_Here I could not get RhinoCAM to accept a simple change from MM to Inches. I was even willing to tolerate the occasional lock-up between Rhino and RhinoCAM... but not accepting a simple change from MM to Inch?! And this from a CAM package that touts the "benefits" of operating from "within Rhino."

To clarify that RhinoCAM does not accept a simple change from MM to Inch, this is what RhinoCAM does when you change the model from mm to Inch (or vice versa for that matter):

http://www.youtube.com/MecSoftCorporation

All programmed operations and tools will be discarded. Since Tools and Mops all have sizes and default values based on the units, that is, are units dependent this is a reasonable way you would expect the system to behave. Note that RhinoCAM cannot prevent the units change from happening (the control is with Rhino) and so it can only react to it.

Technical Support Department
MecSoft Corporation
www.mecsoft.com

[spincaster]

Rhinocam is a bargain and does a lot for the $.

I have had my share of problems with Rhinocam. I am currently trying to resolve why when curves are chosen for 2.5D Rhinocam won't make tool paths.

If I could turn back time I would buy Visual Mill rather than Rhinocam and keep it seperate from the CAD function. Hindsight is 20/20.

Jack

[joblo]

I have Visualmill 6 easy to use and overall quite good for the price and support is very good.

[Lemo]

I use RhinoCam to generate toolpath for 6 different machines and various clients. It never failed me, and if I have a problem setting up a difficult piece I know I can call the support guys and get a few very professional hints.

The mm to inch switch problem is sitting in front if the system. The cause is not IN the system....

No, I really have a lot of work done in it and the service is top notch, and the software is robust. I often work multiple hours on a larger project and when I finally save the file... it's the first time at all. I'm happy that there was no power failure.... but the software has not let me down a single time.

Is it complex, yes and no. You have to know 3D cad and then understand the basic concept of RhinoCam. Which is a matter of a couple of hours at max. Then it's experience on how to use the tool path strategies together with your machine.

So.... with a few hours training or dedicated manual reading, the original post of this thread would not be here.

Rhino and Rhinocam ROCKS!

I use the pro version and generate 3, 4, and 5 axis toolpath with Rhinocam.
Reliably and profitable!

Lemo

[m98custom1212]

Honestly, Use a program that you like.

No need to bash it on a public forum.

I learned Master cam in school and I hate that program. I didn't go to there forum saying how bad it was.

[Hirudin]

Hmmm... revisiting this thread after a long hiatus from using my CNC machine. I still have not purchased another CAM package (once bitten twice shy I suppose). Not only that, but the new machine I bought (Novakon NM-200 series 2) is going to come with the RhinoCAM 4th axis plugin. So, in a way I have actually now given MORE of my money to MecSoft despite my problems.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support I would also like to take this opportunity to state that our technical support is one of the best in the industry and we fully stand behind our products. I am proud to state categorically that Rhino + RhinoCAM 2.0 is the best value that you can get for your money in the CAD/CAM industry today.

Maybe we're talking about two different wings of your support department. I think it's no secret that I did not seek support over the phone. I think the "support" offered on the forum speaks for itself.

Me: "Hi I have a problem with this tool, it doesn't work."
Them: "Use this other tool."
Me: "But I want to use this tool here."
Them: "We've tried to help you. Enjoy being banned."

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support This is totally incorrect. Anybody can verify this by downloading our RhinoCAM demo from CAD Cam Software Download Demos: VisualMill, VisualTurn, VisualArt, RhinoCAM, RhinoART, FreeMILL, loading a tutorials file that has Machining Operations (Mops) defined and going through this sequence. Bring up the Mops Browser Window Select a Mop and make sure it is highlighted Press Ctrl + C Press Ctrl + V

Are you accusing me of not hitting Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V correctly? Is it the official "support" policy of MecSoft to assume that their customers are completely fabricating the problems they're reporting?

What do you seriously think is a more likely explanation of me reporting my inability to use standard keyboard shortcuts...
1. They ACTUALLY DIDN'T WORK.
Or
2. I'm completely fabricating the issue.

1. They ACTUALLY DIDN'T WORK.
I'm surprised that I am the one who has to inform you about this, but...
There's a phenomenon in the software industry called "bugs". One form of "bug" is where a problem occurs for one person EVEN THOUGH it doesn't occur for another. "Bugs" are common in software development. Just because other people do not experience the same bug DOES NOT MEAN the bug doesn't exist.

If I do call your tech support phone number and I tell them "hey, Ctrl + C doesn't work" I hope to hell that the "support" agent doesn't say "are you ACTUALLY hitting Ctrl + C or are you lying to me?".

2. I'm completely fabricating the issue.
The insinuation being that I know perfectly well that the functionality is there but I'm choosing to lie about it. And what a perfect thing to choose to lie about too! I mean, as you said yourself: "anyone can verify" whether the problem exists by downloading the demo and trying it for themselves. If I was lying (which I wasn't) you have masterfully foiled my plan to sully your good name.

I think it takes a real *ss**** to assume their customer is lying about something SO SIMPLE. Talk about hostility.

Imagine this was a physical piece of electronics, like say, a TV.
Customer: "Hi my power button doesn't work."
Support: "You're lying, you're not really hitting the power button. You're banned."

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support Deleting a Mop will put the Mop in the clipboard. You can then retrieve the operation by doing a right click and paste operation. Or a Ctrl + V will also work

Yeah, that's SO much better than using "Ctrl + Z". So intuitive too.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support This is there for legacy reasons. In RhinoCAM 1.0 we did not save feeds/speeds in the tool library. In 2.0 we have introduced this feature but decided to keep the old format around so our 1.0 users would be able to load these old libraries and save them in the new format. This older format will be phased out in our next release

Cool, that's good to hear.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support As you can see in the thread we tried to contact Hirudin without avail.

This is a minor point, but you obviously DID contact me. You put a post on your forum to which I replied. Later you banned me from the forum.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support For some reason he does not want to directly deal with us – which would have made a lot of sense in this case since we were trying to understand why he was having so much trouble with the software.

Lets clear the air here. I have a simple question...

Is the MecSoft.com Support Forum affiliated with MecSoft?

If it is an official branch of MecSoft I would say that I DID in fact contact you directly.

You may note that this thread wasn't created until AFTER the ban on your support forum.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support Trying to figure out what he wanted our system to do without information, as any reasonable person can see from this thread, is near impossible.

I'm not saying you're wrong, different people will have different perceptions even given the exact same data. I am a reasonable person and when I look at that thread I see something different.

I see this...
Me: "Tool A doesn't work."
You: "Use Tool B."
Me: "No, you're not understanding. I want to use Tool A."
You: "You're banned."

You want "information"? Try this:

Hi, I'm trying to use one of your tools to mill a SQUARE HOLE! For some reason your thousand-dollar program is creating diagonal rapids all over the place for seemingly no reason. How can I fix this?

Let me reiterate the only relevant "information" to enhance your comprehension of the problem at hand.

I wanna make square hole. Your software is making random diagonal rapids and cuts all over the place. How can I fix this?

A third time...
I'm trying to make a square hole. Presumably the program would simply create a square toolpath at one depth, then repeat it over and over again until the bottom of the cut. Instead of this logical behavior your program has made an erratic mess of rapids and diagonal cuts that make little to no sense. I estimate the "erratic mess" is adding about 33% more time to this cut. How can I fix this?

The crux of the "information" I've offered is "How can I fix this?" The pivotal word in that phrase is "fix". Conflating "fix" and "ignore" is a surefire way to provide poor support.

If I had come to your forum and asked "dur, how I make hole?" your "support" would have been perfectly appropriate. But that's not what I asked and your support didn't help. I asked why the program was acting the way it was acting. You essentially said "ignore the erratic mess, use something else". "Don't worry about the problem, here's a way to ignore the problem." "Your kid's crying wont be a problem once you fix it with this pillow."

I don't want to fix the symptom, I want to fix the PROBLEM. There's a distinction. Would you agree that this is an important distinction?

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support That is why we offer FREE phone support to all our customers. We love hearing from our customers and the more information we have the better we can help you. So pick up the phone and give us a call if the support we offer through our Support Forums is not helping you.

It's nice you offer phone support to all your customers. As a customer who has been banned from getting support on your support forum I'm very glad that there is another avenue to get support. I'm a pleasant person by nature but I'm going to get pretty pissed very quickly if your phone support starts off the conversation by calling me a liar.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support This is blatantly untrue. We cannot duplicate this nor have we heard of this from our customers. This is such a fundamental feature of the product that I am sure we would have heard from at least one other customer from our thousands of customers around the world about this problem if it indeed was a problem.

I thought I recorded a video of this as well, but I cannot find it now. If I do locate it I'll post it on YouTube. If the problem still exists I'll record a new video and post it on YouTube. Like before, if the issue is fixed I will remove the video from YouTube.
One way or another the problem was there. I believe the only quantitative estimate I gave to the frequency of this problem was 50%. It was actually closer to 80%. There were several occasions where I had to save the file 7 or 8 times in a row before the RhinoCAM data would open in the second instance of Rhino.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support This is a deliberate design decision on our part. To maintain system integrity we do not resort to quick and dirty solutions even if it might make sense to a “power” user. Decisions such as these are what makes a system unwieldy to use in the long run - if you pack enough of these into a system. As an alternative, you can use a V mill and use our engraving option and select a point as your geometry and perform drilling this way with a milling tool. You can even use multiple depth of cuts to simulate peck drilling if you so desire. Another way of doing this is to use the same tool number in a drill tool and use the drilling operation if you desire cycles to come out. The post-processor only looks at the tool number and does not check the type of tool used.

Hi. Can you point to a single instance where I claimed there wasn't some kind of workaround for this issue? Before you start looking I'll save you some time: I never said nor implied that. What I said is I don't like your deliberate design decision. Yes, I AM a power user - I would like a program that does what I want without having to resort to workarounds. Any simpleton can find and be happy with a workaround. I'm sorry that I'm more demanding than your average user... I just got a great idea: use that as your slogan! "MecSoft: We have the least demanding customers!" That way power users like myself (people you like to ban from your forum) will know to steer clear.

Again, "Tool A doesn't work? Just use Tool B. You're banned." isn't a solution I'm interested in.

Obviously, you have the ultimate control over what goes into your software. I don't expect you to tailor your software to all my whims. My original post was a list of reasons NOT to buy RhinoCAM, not some kind of list of problems everyone the whole world over will have with RhinoCAM.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support This was a put in based on a user request. However a few users have complained about this and so we have reverted back to the old behavior. This has already been fixed and will show up in our next service pack. This is a good point. We will make the feeds/speeds calculator available from the tool creation dialog in our upcoming release.

Great on both counts! As angry as I am for being banned from your support forum I am still willing to post where MecSoft has resolved the issues I've had. I think it's really great that you're willing to take suggestions from me, even though I'm being irate.

I know you're not a terrible company. I've already said I don't "hate" you. I've even bought another piece of your software (in a round-about way) since creating this thread. Who knows... when I install RhinoCAM again and put in the 4th axis plugin maybe all my problems (maliciously fabricated or otherwise) will have gone away and I'll be a RhinoCAM cheerleader.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support There are settings in the simulation preferences dialog that the user can set to alleviate all of these issues. In addition to this, if simulation quality is important, we offer two separate 2 simulation algorithms/modes in our product. The use of the right mode in appropriate situations is important for obtaining the desired results.

As I recall the other setting was not available to me (grayed out). I suspect it was disabled because I only own(ed) the Standard version of RhinoCAM. No, I'm not happy that the superior rendering option is reserved for your "better" customers. Turning up the detail just exaserbated the "slowness" issue I was having (before you jump to any conclusions: I swear, I'm not lying about it).
See attached images.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support Our product has one of the richest feature sets in the industry and in our price range, it has THE richest feature set. So this statement shows a lack of understanding of the market as well as the available features in our product. Also the settings that the user is talking about are saved in the registry and will not “randomly” change. It is possible that these settings were not saved due to a crash out of Rhino and so these settings were not saved in the registry.

Sure, I'm ignorant of what else is out there. Most companies don't even offer a demo. I mentioned in a previous post several other CAM packages that I have crossed off my list for various reasons. I've even posted since my original post that I agree that RhinoCAM may be the "best" in its price range. However, being the best of a group of crappy programs doesn't make RhinoCAM "great". It only means it's less crappy.

Personally, I prefer software that saves its settings in an ini file. They're easier to backup and restore and it also avoids some inherent problems with the registry. The fact that my reverting settings issue can be blamed on Rhino crashing (something it almost never did ON MY COMPUTER before RhinoCAM was installed) doesn't exactly clear RhinoCAM of culpability. There should be safeguards against software crashes.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support You can turn this off if you don’t want the program to check for updates every time the program launches. In fact there is a check box right on the dialog that asks if the user wants to do this every time or not. I am not sure why this user missed this.

No, I was not able to turn off the automatic check. As I recall, the option is only available under certain conditions. I think the option was only available the first time it checked for an update or only if an update was actually available. Again, I'll record it on video next time.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support This is again an incorrect statement. If we did this, it would not go over very well with our existing customers.

Originally Posted by MecSoft Support Quite to the contrary we have updated and enhanced almost ALL methods that were available in the .10 product. In addition to this we have added new methods such as Spiral and Radial machining in RhinoCAM 2.0 STD version. These methods were only available in the PRO configuration in RhinoCAM version 1.0. So I fail to see what the customer is complaining about here. A specific example would help us get to the bottom of this claim.

I thought advanced toolpath editing was available in the basic version of RhinoCAM 1.0. Although I looked, I couldn't find any evidence to support this. I may have been mistaken.

[weiser]

I am brand new to this forum and the CNC world but I am a engineer. This thread has kept me laughing so hard my gut hurts!

Someone for SURE has way too much time on their hands to type all that trash.

My opinion of Rhinocam - tech support called me before I even installed the software!

LOL!

[spoiledbrat]

Weiser,

Agreed.

[brian257]

I have RhinoCam 1.0 and have not been completely happy with it. Possibly a lot of the problems I have with it were fixed in the later releases, but I am fairly reluctant to spend more money on a program that I am not happy with.

The mm to inch switch is a big pain. I do my part models in AutoCad then import to Rhino for CAM since I am much better at AutoCad. I get it to work by opening a file that was done in inches in Rhino, deleting the operations, deleting the old part, then inserting the new AutoCad part and renaming and saving the file. It is a big PITA, but it works.

I have not tried calling tech support about it yet, but I had a major problem with a file to drill a bunch of holes. Normally I do a lot of 2.5d profiling work on the router, but needed holes for something. I set it up to peck drill, but it never would peck, just drilled full depth. It also would drill then it would retract the bit while moving to the next hole instead of retracting the bit then starting the move. I had to manually modify the G code to do the retraction first. I wound up on this part manually moving the Z axis and running 8 passes at increasing depth since I never could get the program to peck. Took an hour to drill the holes instead of the 10 minutes it should have. Now something this simple I am confident I could have fixed with tech support, but I had to do this on a Saturday. I can't imagine that bugs like this are not something that was fixed, but I sure could not find the solution.

One thing I can't stand with RhinoCam is that it needs a dongle and if the dongle is lost, you just lost all your money. I keep my dongle in my safe when I am not using it, but keep it on top of my laptop when I am working a lot with it. Several times I have had to search for it when my wife cleaned up even after warning here that the purple thing is a $1,000 dongle, not a memory stick.

I was just looking yesterday at MadCam. It is a lot less expensive and I will give it a serious evaluation when I need to upgrade to 4 axis soon.

[chmillman]

Well, RhinoCAM 1.0 is now 2 versions old, but:

The mm to inch switch is a big pain. I do my part models in AutoCad then import to Rhino for CAM since I am much better at AutoCad. I get it to work by opening a file that was done in inches in Rhino, deleting the operations, deleting the old part, then inserting the new AutoCad part and renaming and saving the file. It is a big PITA, but it works.

RhinoCAM 1.0 would either work in inches or MM, but not both, if you changed unit systems it would exit. But that doesn't explain the necerssity of the procedure outlined above. RhinoCAM 2012 will not exit if the units are changed, but the machining data is removed. Generally you do not change unit systems in the same file, though.

set it up to peck drill, but it never would peck, just drilled full depth. It also would drill then it would retract the bit while moving to the next hole instead of retracting the bit then starting the move. I had to manually modify the G code to do the retraction first. I wound up on this part manually moving the Z axis and running 8 passes at increasing depth since I never could get the program to peck. Took an hour to drill the holes instead of the 10 minutes it should have. Now something this simple I am confident I could have fixed with tech support, but I had to do this on a Saturday. I can't imagine that bugs like this are not something that was fixed, but I sure could not find the solution.

The solution is in having the correct postprocessor for your machine, and thoroughtly testing it before you run important parts. This is not a RhinoCAM problem, this is a post config problem. "Out of the box" postprocessors almost always need tweaking.

One thing I can't stand with RhinoCam is that it needs a dongle and if the dongle is lost, you just lost all your money

Dongles are reality in many CAM systems (virtually all higher end ones) and even some other types of programs (one of my rendering software packages requires one). I'm not fond of them either, but that's just the way it is.

I was just looking yesterday at MadCam. It is a lot less expensive and I will give it a serious evaluation when I need to upgrade to 4 axis soon.

MadCAM is an excellent program. It's toolpathing capabilities are excellent, better than RhinoCAM's in many ways, but you will find it does work a bit differently than a "classic" CAM program.

--ch