Down a new rabbit hole with Vectric Cut2D

I decided to finally bite the bullet and try Cut2D which is the lower tier version of VCarve and I have to say so far I’m really happy. I do like that the company offers a fully functional trial with no time limit, only limitation is can’t export gcode. A lot of the annoyances I have with Carbide Create it handles well, I can do offsets without adding geometry which lets me much more easily setup finishing passes and such, which have been important to me lately. In-software toolpath previews, ramping, climb and conventional milling, a larger set of drawing tools all add to the upsides. The $150 price tag is infinity% more than Carbide Create which is why I waited so long, but since I’m making some money on the things I make it seems worth it. I also like that you can upgrade down the road penalty free (the cost of the upgrade is the price difference if you bought the more powerful product in the first place).

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Welcome to the Vectric party! It really is excellent stuff, I’m not sure what I did without it. Be sure to check out the PP I wrote for vectric/shapeoko here, as it puts out much nicer (IMHO) gcode than the stock PP for grlb/shapeoko.

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Ah good to know, I haven’t gotten a project to the table but I’d assumed the built in Shapeoko pp would be fine, certainly happy to have something better if there is one.

The default pp work perfectly fine. Naturally I just think mine is better :slight_smile:

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I’m interested to see what limitations you find with Cut 2D. I waited a while to bite the cost of VCarve Desktop. I’m just interested to see what you find that Cut 2D “can’t” do for you. I’m kind of in the same boat with Desktop. I won’t upgrade to Pro or Aspire until I find something that the current version can’t do. Hasn’t happened yet.

Indeed, I did just switch back to CC for a vcarving project, which unsurprisingly you really need Vcarve to do. It will profile with a vbit but not do a vcarving inside an arbitrary shape. This year I’m trying to make my woodworking a business instead of throwing piles of cash at it so the upgrade will be something I consider as I earn some money directly from woodworking. Looks like once I get to VC Desktop I shouldn’t need to make any move for quite awhile.

I never made the jump from vcarve Desktop to Pro… only thing Pro gets you is bigger workspaces and access to their widget/thing library. The work size is easily addressed with tiling, so… yea. Desktop it is. If I wanted to do more 3D I could maybe see Aspire, but then Fusion360 is infinitely more flexible for true 3D cad/cam and FREE.

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I’m still using VCarve Desktop too, but have run into the 25"x25" limitation with some of my furniture ideas. Other than that really the only thing I would like is to be able to use the expanded moulding toolpaths of Aspire. I have a full blown CAD package, but using VCarve is so much easier. Have only barely tried Fusion360, but I’m not really ready for the learning curve, especially since I already use a different CAD software for full 3D. The Vectric product pricing is a pretty good strategy though, it seems like there’s always a “Dangit, if only it could do this one more function I’d be set”, which makes me look upward in the product line. Great thing is to upgrade you only pay the difference.

Dan

What i love about Vectric and Carbide software is they are not cloud based. This may not seem like much but for the 33 million Americans who have limited or no internet access its huge. At $120 a month for just 30gigs of access via Hughesnet Cloud access is unsustainable, hence i still use Photoshop CS6 !!

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IIRC the newer adobe products are still desktop apps they just periodically confirm your license activation

I didn’t realize that, good to know. But i would still rather pay for the software outright and any upgrades if needed. Being a Brit i hate monthly drip feed payments.:smile:
Thanks for the info
Phil

For my part, as a formally trained graphic designer who works in the print industry, I’ve been embarrassed that the industry as a whole just rolled over and took this. I know the accountants like it, and it’s obvious in retrospect that Adobe had planned this out for at least a decade (they obviously chose not to implement some obvious / easy features in perpetually licensed products so as to move them into the monthly licensing featureset), but it’s still a shame that the industry didn’t just pick some opensource software and develop it as a whole for everyone to use / have access to (there was a bit of a push with the Sk1 fork of Skencil if memory serves).

I’ve always advocated for opensource software, and it’s much easier to do a roll-out of a site when one doesn’t have thorny licensing issues to contend with, and far more affordable when there are no unnecessary monthly fees.

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Yeah agreed, I too stuck with CS6 but it’s more to do with this than anything else. I realize for folks upgrading every few years the license ends up not costing more, but some of us aren’t upgrading frequently and get many many years out of an old edition.

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I’ll add I’m already looking at the VCarve upgrade, not doing arbitrary vcarve shapes is already in my way, BUT the project is so simple (the coasters I posted in the gallery) that CC is almost ideal for it anyways since it’s a few vcarves and some circles. So probably won’t upgrade for this project but I can see the day…

Plus this leaves me money to look into a spindle sander.

The other thing to keep in mind is that not all “cloud based” is really “cloud based” in the way you might assume. I understand in your case this isn’t going to be acceptable, but for example, Fusion360 actually runs locally, it’s the integrated dropbox-like file stuff that’s really “cloud based.”

I do recall having the impression that F360 had been built in something web-like, the whole thing felt like it loaded similar to a website application but it could just be my perception or their chosen aesthetics.

As far as Photoshop is concerned I just use gimp it’s free and it does everything Photoshop does I am also about to take the plunge on V carve

CC driving me crazy, locks up And shuts down quite often, build 313 The latest version build 311 the previous version I had no problems with

Please let us know any specifics on CC313 crashing — in particular, if you can let us know of specific steps, or files and actions which crash repeatably, please send those in to support@carbide3d.com

Yes, has that sort of feel. They use a heaping ton of json and xml, but it does work fine when offline.

You’ll be eyeballing Aspire in no time… :wink: