Budget recommended CAD's and CAM's (2x lathe, 3x mill)

Hello and thank you for your time! Every time I looked up a machining related question, this site would pop up, and figured it's about time to sign up.

I'm a student in a machining program and am really enjoying everything related to this sweet field and feel God blessed to have an opportunity in it. I'm interested in eventually owning a small job shop/prototyping business but don't want to be overly buried in unnecessary startup debt. It'd also be nice to be able to practice with the programs sooner rather than later. As such I have a (quite) a few questions (sorry ) for you on CAD's and CAM's. I did a couple searches that popped up a few some years back, but wondered if there were recent additions or problems with old favorites.

I'd like to put a budget limit of 1000 usd each, less is preferable, a student discount with commercial usage allowed is a huge bonus! That being said if a moderately priced CAD or CAM cost of ownership isn't practical compared to the bigger boys, how much should I budget, and what for?

Also, do you have good resources for training and recommended options or plugins for the CAD/CAM setup you recommend?

CAD's
I've heard a lot about certain CAD's, in particular, Alibre, Turbocad, and Rhino. I work with Solidworks at school, but only in modeling and only the very basics. It's such a huge program, I'm sure the help file looks like a major city's phone book. The only other thing I somewhat know of CAD is parametric vs direct modeling (sounds impressive at the dinner table). I like the flexibility of a parametric program, yet don't think I'm going to be designing enough similar parts with moderate differences to justify getting direct modeling CAD off the table.

I'm looking for a pretty powerful modeling program (2d drawing option would be nice for shop planning) for making prints of parts and assemblies. It would also be nice if there were options to constrain, i.e. for simulating connecting dowel pins, gears meshing, etc.

Speaking of gears, is Gearotic worth adding to the CAD for contraptions and machine repair?

As to the rest, I don't know of other worthwhile features to look for. Total machining newb.

CAMs

I've heard of...a lot of CAMs but don't know all that much about them. A 3x mill, and 2x lathe type would be outstanding, but would settle for just the mill, a flexible/sizeable post, good support and a readable help file. I like to have at least some hands on programming and proofing, so a CAM with followable toolpaths, and tool selectable ops (i.e. select a face mill for facing, .5 endmill for nesting, a .250 for pocketing, and drill cycle) would be great as well. Are HSM tool paths even an option for such a modest budget CAM?

Thanks again for your time!

Check out AutoDesk Fusion 360. It's an excellent CAD/CAM package that does 99% of everything you could ever want it to. 2D and 3D parametric CAD with assemblies, Finite Element Analysis, excellent rendering engine, complex 3d contours, and it has HSMworks built in. Oh yeah, and it's free to students, makers, and for commercial use if your business makes less than $100k per year. If you make more than $100k, I think it's $300/year if I remember right? Can't beat that. Take a look, it may not do everything you can do with SolidWorks and MasterCAM or others, but it's literally a few orders of magnitude cheaper for a LOT of functionality. It's also still being actively developed, so new features and bugfixes come out every couple of weeks. If you ask for something in their forum and some other people get on board with it, chances are you'll see it soon.

Definitely take a look at Fusion 360. For the price I think you would be hard pressed to beat it. There seems to be a lot of concern with it being cloud based and an Autodesk product. But there seems to be several people who are successful in using it as hobbyist or small production setting. Now if you want to eventually get a full blown CAD and a separate CAM system I think you'd looking at a minimum of $10K. Especially by the time you look at yearly subscriptions fees. I know my company had about that in a new seat of Solidworks and FeatureCam about five years ago.

JustAbout

0_0 That is impressive. I did forget to mention another important caveat. Right now, I got some serious speeds and fusion 360 would work for me right now. However, where I live, we have satellite internet, which means bandwidth limits and limited access, and while they say it's a DSL. I heard 'cloud based', is it something where you can only use online?

megiddoblades said:

0_0 That is impressive. I did forget to mention another important caveat. Right now, I got some serious speeds and fusion 360 would work for me right now. However, where I live, we have satellite internet, which means bandwidth limits and limited access, and while they say it's a DSL. I heard 'cloud based', is it something where you can only use online?

Click to expand...

Not entirely true.. Fusion runs on the computer and uses the computers "hp" so to speak to do the calculations but uses "the internet or the cloud" to sync up your designs and settings.

Fusion 360 right now is the benchmark for what you are looking for. If you compare price with it's capabilities there is no competition. It will still work without internet access but you will not be able to import anything or load any of your own files unless you have worked with them in the last 2 weeks. If you know when you will be having internet outages then some planning will avoid most of these issues. Some features are cloud based such as high level rendering and possibly simulation. I have been using it for 2-1/2 years and pretty much love it. I do prototype, product development, and production with it and have yet to not get what I needed done. It is not a mature program so some things need work arounds.

Try Fusion first, hey it's free, and you probably won't look back.

I'm guessing you could get a copy of BobCAD-CAM that does both CAD and 3x Mill "Pro" and 2x Lathe for well under $2,000. I'm a long time customer so I probably get preferred treatment but I was offered the latest version at a ridiculously low cost (not in the same zip code as $2,000).

It is now a hybrid solid modeling software as opposed to being a strictly direct modeling program. Maybe "history" based is a better word? You can create solid model features but the underlying 2D geometry is entirely parametric (similar to SW sketch---> model). Primitives objects could be considered parametric as well but I'm not an expert on these definitions so maybe someone else can clear that up.

The CAM is very good, the Simulation is top notch (including full machine verification) and an extra add-on is Predator Backplot which does true G-Code verification by simulating the control definition.

It also includes HSM strategies in the "Pro" version that are very similar to other high end software such as Mastercam. I have both and the similarities are startling but Mastercam is obviously "optioned out" and has a lot of great time saving capabilities.

You've probably heard some bad things about BobCAD or maybe you've tried it and it seemed clunky or difficult compared to some other GUI's and workflows but I can assure you it is not hobby software. I run 8 VMCs and a 5 axis (table-table) with it quite well. The only thing I have that I haven't already mentioned is the 4x "standard" to get positional moves for our 4th and 5th axis machines.

No Cloud or internet connection required either Just so you know.

I would try Fusion anyway if it is truly free for you. I would but I don't have time to learn software that I don't plan on investing in and I'm just not a fan of subscription, cloud, or having my customer files online.

Just go all-in with Fusion 360.

I don't think much of the mid-tier CAD/CAM guys are going to be around for very long now. Fusion 360 has Autodesk behind it, OnShape has Andreessen Horowitz as their lead investor (read: Basically unlimited capital as long as they execute at 85% or above their targets, which they appear to be doing handily). F360 and OnShape are both hiring top flight talent, they both have really experienced management, and they are both developing at a pace that the CAD/CAM industry has never seen.

How can something like BobCAD, or SolidEdge (Siemens backed, I know... but hardly a market leader), or anyone else below the SolidWorks tier really go at this point?

Thank you very much everyone, I'm humbled by all the responses helping a noob like me! I will definitely check Fusion 360 and Bobcad out and compare the strengths and weaknesses of both. I'll be going back home for a couple months and at the very least, will verify Fusion is functional where we live.

@DavidScott, our internet is pretty good (considering how it all works) if a bit unreliable and doesn't like streaming stuff. Basically, a 20 mb file can take upwards of 10-20 minutes to download, has to do with ping and packets or something. If it's just settings and uploaded files for collaboration, that'd be great. If it actually streams the document, then there may be a problem. However definitely playing with it and signing up now.

@RTM, contacting Bobcad-cam reps for more details.

It seems like Fusion got universal acclaim, if there are any others worth checking out, please let me know, I like options. Thanks again for your help!

I did forget to mention that if you are truly a hobbyist or student be sure to mention that - no matter what CAM company you contact. Just about all of them have special pricing for hobbyists and students.

I also forgot to mention that I recently subscribed to caminstructor.com (Mods, please let me know if it is inappropriate to post this link) for a little on the side Mastercam training. The video tutorials are very good and a one year subscription includes a copy of Mastercam Home Learning Edition. It is a fully licensed and functional copy of Mastercam all the way up to Multiaxis. The only thing missing is being able to post the code for obvious reasons.

If I had known I could have taught myself Mastercam for $275 I would have done it 10 years ago. If you really feel strongly about being in this field it never hurts to learn as many CAM systems as you can. I didn't think I would ever use it now here I am trying to program this with about a month experience under my belt in a 5 axis.



Again, just so you know this part is easily done (with experience) in BobCAD even without the 4-5 axis add-ons for positioning. I could add those codes manually if I had to but with the inexpensive 4x "Standard" edition I can post it with no hand editing at all (I just can't properly simulate it). Good luck to you!