Do any shapeoko users out there have any reviews, comparisons, comments on using Carbide Create/Motion software vs Alibre Workshop CAD/CAM software? I’m interested to hear what users who have tried both have to say. Likes/Dislikes?
There are a couple of videos which were done on it:
and I had a bit of a false start with it back when Atom 3D first came out:
that said, we did have two recent instances where we did designs in both Carbide Create and Alibre:
which should allow one to judge for oneself.
My big problem with it is it’s mouse-centric, in particular seeming to require a middle mouse button, and when using a Connexion Spacemouse, needs the driver to be running, which I find fiddly/annoying — if they’d just make a touch-oriented UI option which made use of a stylus/trackpad, I’d find it far more comfortable.
Maybe when I retire I’ll be more inclined to do CAD at a desk w/ a mouse, as opposed to wherever I happen to be w/ a tablet and stylus (which is my normal mode of computer usage — yes, I know, I should’ve bought Moment of Inspiration — it’s probably going to be my next indulgence).
Alibre Atom’s website has a very good set of tutorials starting from the UI and progressing from there. At least very good from the standpoint of someone who’s been using SolidWorks for 28 years and needs to do a mindset adaptation. Atom is very similar in concept to SW though.
And MeshCAM is a wonderfully usable and adaptable program which I’ve used since pre-release betas, though I’ve only used it with STL files as input, but looking forward to seeing what its capabilities are with DXF input–I used SheetCAM for DXF-based CAM as much as MeshCAM for STL-based, sometimes on the same workpiece…
That said, I haven’t used CC so I don’t personally know what the tradeoffs would be…
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 30 days. New replies are no longer allowed.