Newb here, need advice and help (some mild rant)

HI, just bought out a company in our field that had a Haas TM2P and a TML2, 2 seats of Solidedge and 2 seats of BC v24. Part of the deal was it was suppose dto come with 2 weeks of training on the software and their drawings, setups and toolpaths. I have been hosed on the training so far so me and my dad have been on a crash course over the last month learning the machines, our tooling and the software. Many nights over the last month I have only gotten a couple hours sleep. Machines not making chips is not an option.

I personally had 0 previous experience with cad or cam before this but I know my way around computers and am a fast learner. My dad is very familiar with Vcarvepro but thats a ton different then Solids and BC.

Among my many many issues with Bobcad so far the very top of the list is the crashing. It crashes ALL THE TIME. Try and save and post to thumb drive, crash,post only, crash, verify tool path, crash, get click happy while drawing, crash. The computer its on is plenty robust for it unless its just the video card but solid edge runs on it just fine and very rarely has crashed, maybe 2 times compared to hundreds of times with BC. To prevent posting crashes I have to first save to the hard drive then to the thumbdrive, and never hit post only.

My next thing is it just doesnt seem to flow like my brain wants to think when tool pathing. I know exactly what I want but feel like I am constantly doing some kind of work around to get exactly what I want done, and I am talking just plain 2D tool paths nothing even complicated. Its stuff that my dad can draw and tool path in Vcarve in a fraction of the time. The 3d paths I have tried has been even worse, something as simple as a fillet has about caused me to go jump in front of a train.

So right now I am not sure if I should keep killing myself with BC, maybe go ahead and get the license transferred, upgrade to 27 and see if it gets better or move on to something that maybe fits how I think better? I have a Onecnc trial dongle on the way and want to see how it is, the videos I watched on it seem to fit us better.

I have plenty of issues I need help with but will save those for other threads. If I could get it to stop crashing all the time I would feel alot better about moving forward learning it.

Thanks, Bean

Welcome,,,,
If this stuff was easy,everybody would be doing it.Not really.Kidding you not,it is not too difficult,but it is going to take quite an investment of your time.
Can't help on your post and crashing issues,but if there is something else in particular,start a thread and this Forum will get you sorted.It is like free tech support.

This may be of some value bobcad v24 videos - YouTube
and this (a lot of the newer video's can still be applied to V24) V25 2D: BCC Die Plate Part 1 - YouTube


ps,your crashing could be a computer thing,and I will let our guru's on the forum tackle that angle.
FWIW,6 years ago I dove into the world of CNC.I never even touched a computer.BUT,I had quite a few years of machining on the manuals under my belt.
Anyhow at the young age of 49 I decided to buy a computer(I was bored and needed a new challenge).Well,I dove in and learned and learned,,self teaching.One thing I did differently than most of my friends,instead of going to porn sites,I discovered E-Bay.One thing led to another and I started getting into the auctions.I did my homework diligently and probably lost 2 dozen auctions,but then I won one.I won a Haas VF-2....8,000 lbs.of CNC with no idea of what to do.So I set it up at a friends shop and read and read and read,then had a 4 hour crash course on the machine from a friend.Now I needed to either learn a new language called G-Code??????or get something called "software" that does "CAD/CAM"??????????I got Bobcad V23 (on E-Bay)not kidding....I self taught and was running easy stuff within the week.About almost all my work is 2 or 2 1/2 axis work.I do mostly onesy,twosy or very small runs and I use whatever machine gets the job out quickest.A lot of the time that means the manual machines rule.This does not mean I run easy parts all the time.To the point,,,,,as the years have gone by and the cussing at how BoB just _ _ _ _ this up,,funny thing now, BoB rarely crashes and most of those mistakes BoB use to do,he doesn't do anymore.
A note,I am in particular talking 2D operations.

Thanks jr, I am in a pretty similar situation. I have wanted to own cnc's and make my own products for years. I even bought a 5x10 MetaTool table that had a 7hp router on it along with vcarve and had my dad start running it. We made parts but it was just super frustrating due to lack of rigidity of the machine and phantom lost steps in the stepper motor ruining parts and tools. Then this oppurtunity came up and now I have to get on top of this stuff in a hurry. I was making parts within a week on the mill but also learning the hard way by messing up 160.00 blocks of alum and blowing up a brand new 600.00 bit lol. That hurt.

I will get all the specs on the computer and see if the video card is lacking or something. It has plenty of speed and memory though. Was great learing that it crashed, spent probably 3 hours figuring out toolpaths in the beginning and finally had something I felt worked, hit post and save it crashed and lost it all. I use the save button much much more now!

One thing I am having issues with currently is with a thread mill. I just cant seem to get my thread depth right. It almost seems like it does the opposite of how I change it.

upload a .zip file of a .bbcd file you have as an example.
Also maybe a pic of the actual thread mill may help

I've owned both OneCNC and Bobcad. OneCNC used to wipe the floor with Bobcad, but I would say that is no longer the case and in some ways Bobcad has surpassed OneCNC, even without taking the difference in cost into account, at least that's my opinion. V22 and V23 appeared to be major steps to making the workflow more modern, and V24 was really perhaps the first version where it was getting more mature. V25 added some features, then V26 seems like it really took off in the workflow department and has been a huge boost in productivity from my perspective. V26 introduced the "DMS" system for toolpathing, which is highly efficient once you learn it.

V24 always worked quite well for me and I never really had much issues with crashing. That said, I now use V26 and it has a much improved workflow over V24, which is one of the things I always liked about OneCNC. V27 just came out, and as with all newly released software I expect there may be a few bugs at this point, but from what I've seen of it (I have the demo on my computer right now), it is also reasonably stable. Whether it's V24, V25, V26 or V27, I just don't get crashes more than once in a very long while, so you must have something that is conflicting with it. You should post the specs of the computer, including the operating system and any updates you've applied. Also, what video card are you using and what driver do you have for it? One of the things that I've had cause an issue in the past was not removing the old video driver before installing the new video driver when updating. For some software, it doesn't seem to matter, but for Bobcad, I can recall it gave me some headaches until I figured it out (Lightroom also was a bit buggy until I reworked the video driver). I can really go weeks without a crash and I use the software often. I also often leave the software running for days at a time without issue, coming and going to generate code and often re-work the file to fine tune the program if I think it can be streamlined.

The computer came with it already installed, it looks to be a custom built system.

Intel i7-2600 3.4G
Win 7 64 Bit
16G Memory (over 14 free as well)
Video card looks to be an integrated Intel setup. I am going to pull a card out of one of my other systems and see if that helps. Could be the driver or something I suppose.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Beansdiesel

The computer came with it already installed, it looks to be a custom built system.

Intel i7-2600 3.4G
Win 7 64 Bit
16G Memory (over 14 free as well)
Video card looks to be an integrated Intel setup. I am going to pull a card out of one of my other systems and see if that helps. Could be the driver or something I suppose.

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When I had V24 set up, my computer was similar with an i7 2600 and 16gb of memory (4 sticks of 4gb each). The main difference was just that I had an Asus Geforce 560ti graphics card, which worked well once I installed the driver correctly.

A small thing, which may help is to turn off auto save in the Preferences Menu and save manually.
Not that it would solve your problems but every little thing may help.

RAF.