Official Luthiers Forum!

Hiya All,
A quite new forum member here from Belgium. Mid 90's I studied guitarbuilding in Antwerp (ILSA International Luthier School Antwerp) After my studies I toured the world with bands as Simple Minds, Chris Rea, Fishbone,... as a guitar tech. Now I'm back home and building guitars full-time...
I'm quite green in the world of 3D drawing and CNC working. Ordered an Excitech 1212 machine two year ago. It was sitting for over a year in my shop, unpacked. Was a little bit scared to power it as I didn't know how to operate it, not able to work with CAD/CAM. When the machine arrived I started to learn Rhino (still struggling) and a friend of mine got Artcam (he generates my Gcodes).
Now I was looking around for CAD/CAM software and contacted a Duch company (I'm a Belgian based builder). At the moment I'm using Rhino 5 for mac, it's a beta version you can use for free. As I have to buy some software in the near future I would like to get some advise from you guys. The Dutch company is trying to sell me me Spaceclaim to do my CAD work has anyone got experience with this software?
Quite expensive 3500€+ a yearly license. He says it's an incredible tool to have. But my budget is 3500€ for CAD AND CAM software. Should I wait and get SpaceClaim+Visual mill (I have to sell some more guitars than) Or should I go for Rhino+RhinoCam? Or is there other affordable software out there?
Questions questions questions...
Hoping someone can lead me in the right direction.
Happy routing,
Hilko

Ah here is a pic of my machine:

And a rosewood neck I've made (drew the solid and generated the g-code myself) was so happy with the result I'd love to do more work with my CNC. But like I said, still got to learn a lot...



Ah and a engraved MOP pick, it worked out after braking a few bits

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Respect!

Hilko
http://www.HilkoGuitars.com

Hilko you need to contact Joakim at Madcam.com and tell him Mike Turner sent you. He writes a software plugin for Rhino5 that allows you to do your cad and cam all in one piece of software. Rhino is spectacular for guitar work and the cam plugin is nice.

joakim@madcamcnc.com

Mike

Your neck looks great! The blend to the headstock is very nice.

I'm a big fan of an integrated or at least mostly integrated CAD/CAM solution like Rhino/Rhinocam or other similar solutions. That allows you to tweak your model without having to go through the whole import procedure. Depending on your package, re-importing can lead to a lot of re-selecting of regions etc.

I use solidworks+VisualMill for Solidworks. Rhinocam is VisualMill for Rhino.

SpaceClaim looks really neat but I don't think there's a huge install base for support. If you go Rhino or SW or other popular packages, there are a lot of folks that can help you through challenging moments.

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

Many Thanks for the tip Mike, I'll contact him shortly!

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Respect!

Hilko
http://www.HilkoGuitars.com

Cheers Andy!
I think I'm not going to blow my budget and go for the Rhino package. And as you pointed out, the support will be better with the Rhino platform as I see a lot of builders using it.
Thanks,
Hilko

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Respect!

Hilko
http://www.HilkoGuitars.com

Spaceclaim has some neat technology, similar to what they're doing with Solidedge now, but I haven't seen a really great application for it yet. I've tried out both, but I found the interfaces to be a bit clunky. The short answer, though, is that you'll never get 3.5K worth of value out of it for guitar work.

Rhino or MOI3D are the best value in 3D modeling, I love Solidworks but it doesn't have any real advantages over Rhino for this type of work and it's much more expensive.

I'd use Visual Mill standalone over the integrated version (RhinoCAM) as the flagship product is likely to be updated with features sooner and is not 'tied down' to another piece of software. They're the same price. I do see Andy's point with re-selection, but I'm not sure it's as straightforward in a non-parametric package like Rhino where every change you make does indeed create a 'new' surface. MadCAM is nice software, and I'd put them side by side if it and Visual Mill were the same price.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Very useful information too Bob! I had a brief look at MadCam and looks really interesting too! Many thanks for pointing this out. Sure I'll have more questions after having a good look at MadCam and Visual Mill tomorrow.
Many thanks!
H

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Respect!

Hilko
http://www.HilkoGuitars.com

Hilko, before you make a decision, I urge you to download both the Rhino and Madcam softwares and try them. It is free for a time and Madcam is a fully functioning version that you can write code with and use that code.

I am a US reseller for Madcam though I have not done much in the area of sales, but I have done support quite a bit, and if you are going to buy software, support is something you need to search out before that decision is made. Let me tell you that when I was trying Madcam, I recieved a ph call from Sweden and Joakim spent his time and money on the ph with me to get me up and running. You will not find a better support system.......period!

Mike

Hiya Mike,
Many thanks for letting me know! I'll sure download the trial versions as I'm not in a big rush buying the software, when I do I'll like a package that suits me best (affordable included).
MadCam looks very good to me, I've watched some of the video's on their website and like what I see. Still got to learn a lot regarding CAM (and CAD). And need to "investigate" al the technical terms first (most of the commands sound still "Chinese" to me )
Cheers Mike!

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Respect!

Hilko
http://www.HilkoGuitars.com