We keep bringing more work in house and I need to know what is the best CAD/CAM software to use.

Current needs are really only 2D, but once I am up to speed it will be 3D and I do have a machine that is 4 axis capable.

Been beating my head against the wall with Bobcad, I need something more.

Ready to pull the trigger on Mastercam, but I bet someone here has an opinion.

It's for making boat parts, so all good, right?

Theres lots of different versions of it. We use AutoCad Mechanical here...but we dont integrate it with CNC machines or anything fancy like that. If its rapid prototyping you want to do then best thing i would recomend is to call a local machine shop up that does what you want to be able to do and ask them what system they are using.

I wouldn't give a squirt of pi$$ for Bobcad.

We are using FeatureCam and it works great.

Remember boys and girls...if you need some diamond or CBN tools for your machines...www.Diagrind.com puts gas in my boat!!!

What about Pro Engineer? This system is probably the easiest system to use once you learn how to use it and it is much more advanced than autocad...

One of the guys that has a CNC next to me uses Master Cam. One of the guys that I work a lot with uses Autocad to design stuff but like Wally does not integrate with a CNC. If he can figure it out then anyone can, he is not the sharpest tool in the box.

Agreed Bob CAD is pretty primative. THere are several softwrae programs available but you really need to look at the skillset of your engineer and integration with machines. Are you running Conversational or G-Code?

Julie

We also use FeatureCam and it works excellent.

Julie, G code at this point.

PS - engineer is me, learn this stuff as I go