Hi

I've been using BobCAD-CAM v25 for a good bit of time now (got the 4 Axis std / 3 Axis Pro)... and use this to create code for my old Fagor 8025M controller on my 4-Axis milling machine.

Now most of the stuff works fine... but I've been running into the same problems over and over again - with no real solution provided by BobCAD.
They offered me to upgrade to v27 - but arguably I'd end up paying more for the UPGRADE than I had payed for v25 (got a good price on that one) which is bothering me, also I'm not certain that v27 will actually solve those issues as the demo doesn't come with a matching post (needed a custom post for the v25).

Reoccurring problems:

- Whenever I add a drilling operation the following operations lack the rapid Z move - the code will show "G00 " instead of "G00 Z2.54" for example... basically omitting axis & coordinate.
If I only post a single individual step - all works fine... same goes if I post the drilling separately... but as soon as it's drilling combined with other operations anything after the initial drill will slowly move Z without rapid feeding - which is often VERY slow.... So far I have "solved" this issue by manually adjusting the G00 command in the NC file..... but it is cumbersome - especially if I modify the file often enough.

- Numerous crashes
Here BobCAD support basically pointed out I should increase the time for Auto-Save intervals ... the auto save feature will do a file-save regardless of the current operation and can thus corrupt the file. Whilst increasing this to about 30 minutes has helped (I now hit "Save" much more often manually) it still didn't absolve the system from crashing ever now and again. Sometimes corrupting the file - sometimes not. It's a ll a tad unpredictable.
Mind you: the computer runs the latest windows + updates, has 12GB of Ram, 2GB Dedicated graphics memory, a reasonably fast HDD, not the latest but sufficient i3 CPU ... latest drivers, etc... so basically the PC fulfils EVERY requirement for BobCAD-CAM v25 and usually has no issues at all with anything else.

And now a weird one that has happened on numerous occasions but I can not pinpoint it down to a common denominator:
- I run a program with multiple operations (one of them being a drill)...
- The program for example does a some pockets, some profiling and then a drill...
- In the simulation all works fine.
- then I run the program on the mill and both the pocketing and profiling work as planned and as simulated. all good.
- then the drilling starts and for example is shifted by say 4mm to one side of the X Axis... Again, the pocketing, profiling, etc all worked fine.
- When I go back to bobcad-cam and simulate the thing again, all is fine - the drilling should be correct. When I choose to remove the drilling from the POST and then post it in an individual file (without the other steps, but without any changes otherwise) it will run as as it is supposed to.
Then thing is this the entire work piece of course by that time is FUBAR... (which is a tad problematic with one off custom pieces as it's a huge waste in material, time & tooling).
And sometimes this happens (with some programs) and yet it doesn't with others... it's all a bit hit / miss.



Maybe someone here has run into similar issues with v25 (or whatever) and has found a solution...

Thanks!!