Visual Mill or Rhinocam ??

[fc911c]

Which one is better and why. I will be doing 4th axis rotary work so please take this into consideration. I will be drawing in Rhino 3.0


Thanks for the help
Frank

[ger21]

RhinoCAM basically IS Visual Mill, it just runs inside Rhino I believe.

[ger21]

I believe you can download Demos of both.
http://www.mecsoft.com/Mec/Downloads/downloads.shtml

[fc911c]

Hi Ger21

Yes I have done this, for some reason I can't get the Rhinocam plug in to load, its looking for the Dongle. My Rhino 3.0 will be here tomorrow so maybe it will load with a full copy. The other thing is I am new to this and don't want to spend the money and be dissapointed later. I plan on doing a lot of 4th axis rotary work and had heard there are some issues there.

I guess I am looking for someone who is using either of them and knows there way around them. There issues if any and week and strong points.

Thanks
For the reply

Frank

[ger21]

Like I said, they should be functionally identical (or close). The only difference is that one is completely inside Rhino, the other (VM) is standalone. You can probably get RhinoCAM for less money, too.

[fc911c]

Got it thanks. I guess then my question should be is there something better for around the same price that will work with Rhino 3.0.

Frank

[JRoque]

Hi. You run RhinoCAM or VisualMill Basic with the same dongle. That means you can purchase RhinoCAM and run it inside Rhino or simply run VisualMill Basic as a standalone application.

One of the few things that *are* different between the two products is file format. Files saved in RhinoCAM cannot be loaded in VM - though they're working to enhance this in the future. Since I want to keep compatibility with the rest of the VM community, I run VM standalone.

In my personal and humble opinion, VM has quite a bit of power and won't disappoint you. Yes, like everything else, you will come to a point where you see issue you wish they fixed or worked differently. But so far I have been able to work around any limitation I've come across.

Plus: Tech Support is superb. I recently saw someone post a problem with the code on a Friday and get a fix by Sunday - pretty impressive. Minus: Documentation. Their online samples and videos fly by features that only experienced users can catch. This is in sharp contrasts to, for example, what Art from Mach2/3 has done. Mecsoft needs to sit someone down and make video samples like Art did.

Overall, VM is a great product and works seamlessly with Rhino.

JR

[fc911c]

Hi JR

that was very helpful thanks. Yes I am running Mach3 also and the video's would really help beginner's. I hope there are listening.

BTW Do you use any 4th axis stuff?

Thanks
Frank

[turmite]

Frank I do 4th axis work, I use Mach2 and Rhino. I don't however use Visualmill. I started to buy it last year and had a user do an gcode for me. He had all sorts of problems gett gcode good enough for me to run. Now I don't want to place blame on him or VM because I don't really know the problem. He did tell me that some of VM's 4th axis stuff need some bug work.

I then found a young man here on the zone that takes my Rhino models and retouches them if necessary and does my gcode on Mastercam.

I am a one man shop and never seem to have enough time to get everything done. Since I have started farming out my gcode I don't have to worry about that part. Attached is an example of one of the parts that this guy tweaked the model and wrote the code for.

Mike

[fc911c]

Hi Mike

thanks for the reply. The stock look's very nice, what's it for?

Yes as far as the forth axis goes, that's what I am affraid of spending the dow and not knowing if it's me or the software. I have access to Mastercam 9, my friends Dad has a full blown CNC shop. I was looking for something easyer to learn on, and don't want to be too much of a bother at the shop.

Frank

[ger21]

Deskproto might have a few more features than RhinoCAM basic + the 4th axis add-on for about $800 less. 30 day demo available. http://www.deskproto.com

[fc911c]

Thanks Gerry

I will take a look

Frank