You will find many folks here on the forum, myself included, who had this exact same question, took the plunge, and in hindsight find it a reasonable price for the value. If you do a lot of intricate V-carving (or other complex projects), it’s unrivaled I think, and the layer mechanism (among a few other productivity features) is what justifies the cost for my personal usecase. I could not afford Aspire, I went with VCarve Desktop.
My arsenal is Carbide Create Pro (for 3D relief and simple projects) + VCarve Desktop (for V-carving and complex parts) + Fusion360 (for the fancy 3D parts with adaptive clearing) and I find them to be quite complementary.
Well, this is exactly where I am at the moment. Having used Carbide Create for a year now I have been looking at what else is out there. I was toying with Carveco until I asked them a couple of questions, one of which was the price in £s, as it is not shown on their site. The answer, in my opinion is ridiculous.
Carveco is a UK based company, I am in the UK, yet they want me to pay in dollars! and incur the bank charges that go with the payment in a foreign currency. At least with Vectric I will be able to pay in my own currency.
One deciding factor is whether the HDZ, Bit Setter & Bit Zero are catered for with the Vectric post processor conversion for the Shapeoko. The Bit Setter has been a real game changer in what I cut and I now couldn’t do without it.
I am awaiting their reply, but would be interested in whether users of Vectric on here have had any problems with these.
the BitZero and HDZ do not impact the G-code generation process
there is a VCarve post-processor for the Shapeoko that supports the BitSetter by inserting the tool changes command. @neilferreri wrote it, I can find the link for you if needed
(to be more specific: I am using VCarve-generated files and I have a HDZ, probe, and BitSetter, and it all works fine)
Well, perhaps before passing judgement on software that you know just a little about, you should walk that mile. There are completely free and fully functional trial versions of all of their software. With just a little effort, you might just find something useful. Oh, sorry, you don’t even have the hardware to run it, sorry.
The purchase price of anything depends on one’s perceived value of that item. In my case, the shoe fits very well. I have walked many a mile with the Vectric product.
I watch others on this forum spending extra time on drawing things in CC, where I know it would only take two clicks to perform a built-in function in a Vectric product. Unless I see a specific need, I try not to comment on the differences, because this is a CC forum.
Hey, this thread is for “Senior Citizens”. Doesn’t bother us one bit to be cranky and opinionated!
As a counterpoint here, I bought Vectric VCarve desktop for a project, used it for that one-off, but haven’t used it save for testing and tech support since because I find the interface fussy and busy — even bought the update to v10 (bought in at v8 early enough to get 9 for free, then bought 10).
Currently working through designs using Block/OpenSCAD:
Once I’ve gotten through a few more designs using that technique and finished up the book I’ll be trying some other tools, focusing on opensource design tools which will run on the Raspberry Pi.
Griff
(Well crap, my hypometric precursor device is blown…)
96
My 2 cents. I have been using Fusion 360 for 5 years now and have not paid a penny for it.
Yes, they recently changed up the free hobbyist version by eliminating rapids and multiple tool jobs. In my particular case, not deal breakers. Just inconvenience’s. Plus, workarounds have been provided by @fenrus.
Given the 3D functionality provided by F360, yes you can export STL’s, I’d think the hobbyist version would suit your purposes well. As you might imagine, the learning curve is quite steep but well worth the effort.
Groucho Marx
I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.
1 Like
Griff
(Well crap, my hypometric precursor device is blown…)
103
Nice piece of kit as you all say. If/when I decide to become a true craftsman and utilize edged tools more often I’d most certainly invest in those pieces. Certainly more impressive/capable then my present set up.
