KCDw and Thermwood

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Michael Kowalczyk
eCabinets Beta Tester
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Post by Michael Kowalczyk »

Just bumping this up because so far no one has posted a simple test file. Maybe I forgot 1 word so I added it below. Can you guess which one was missing?

Larry or George or anyone else with KCDw,
Can you PLEASE post a simple MDB file here, so we can run a quick test?

thank you in advance,
Michael Kowalczyk, GM

HP-Elite Quad Core Q6700-4 MB ram, Nvidia GeForce 512 MB Dual HP 22" flat panels, Windows 7 ultimate 64bit SP1
Michael Kowalczyk
eCabinets Beta Tester
Posts: 284
Joined: Tue, May 10 2005, 11:35AM
Location: Houston, Texas

Post by Michael Kowalczyk »

Well this will be the last bump I do.(648) If no one is willing to post a test of a few cabinets or is unable to post because they do not have the ability to do it with their version of KCDw, then the lack of interest may be the writing on the wall that it may not be worth the 4K+- extra investment for those that offer production sharing. I guess we will have to put an \"AS IS\" clause in for those who want to send us KCDw files. If there was a way to view the file first, it would sure help us to make sure they have their construction correct for machining.

Ken I know that this is a great option for those of us who have Thermwood CNC's and the potential is vast as other Cabinet software developers come on board with the job concept instead of part only. I am just concerned that we would be driving somewhat blind. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Maybe I am jumping the gun but without a KCDw file that works , we can not test it.
Michael Kowalczyk, GM

HP-Elite Quad Core Q6700-4 MB ram, Nvidia GeForce 512 MB Dual HP 22" flat panels, Windows 7 ultimate 64bit SP1
Georgi Baltov
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Post by Georgi Baltov »

Hmmmm that is very very interesting. What will be very interesting for me is if projects from Cabinet Vision or Microvellum could be nested on the Therwood Controll. These are superior design softwares that lack the job level nesting. It doesnt seem that I will get my hands dirty with any of the above mentioned softwares but lets hope that my boss likes playing Santa. Haha
Forrest Chapman
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Post by Forrest Chapman »

George,

From what I've heard Cabinet Vision will be creating a link for \"Job Level\" transfer of files.

In responce to your second comment I own a $35,000.00 copy a CV and use it every day but, don't find it \"far superior\" to Ecabs. It does have some features that make life a little easier but not without major bugs in some instances. However, design time with CV is slightly less and Thermwood is working hard on speeding up and eleminating extra processes. One of my biggest gripes is at the present it gives the machine operator no input on the cut set up or offall material usage.

All software has its strong points and weak. We will do best building on the strong features and avoiding or finding a route around the weak areas.

I'm fully convinced that Ecabinets will have many features similar to other software at some point but at the moment it serves me well doing the more intricate cabinets that CV cannot do easily or at all.

Hope you stick around,
Forrest
Larry Epplin
Thermwood Team
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Post by Larry Epplin »

Michael,

The file provided by KCDw is merely the same as a twd from eCabinet Systems. This Job Level Interface runs the same in Control Nesting. If you wish to run a 'test' I recommend having the client you are going to run KCDw designs from provide you this example. Simply running a random Job Level Interface file will give you no predictions on your prospective customer's designs.
Michael Kowalczyk
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Location: Houston, Texas

Post by Michael Kowalczyk »

Larry,
It is easier to see what the file will produce at the controller from a test file from here on the Forum than a prospective customer. I would like to just run through a simple test job first before I would approach a potential customer. If this is something that Thermwood wants to move forward on it should not be like pulling teeth to get a sample file to test. I would assume that you would have had to have a file to run at Thermwood to test, maybe you can just post it so us Production Sharing members that don't have KCDw can at least go through the motions before we try to sell it.
Thanks in advance,
Michael Kowalczyk, GM

HP-Elite Quad Core Q6700-4 MB ram, Nvidia GeForce 512 MB Dual HP 22" flat panels, Windows 7 ultimate 64bit SP1
Larry Epplin
Thermwood Team
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Post by Larry Epplin »

Just to reiterate... The file provided by KCDw is merely the same as a twd from eCabinet Systems. This Job Level Interface runs the same in Control Nesting. If you wish to run a 'test' I recommend having the client you are going to run KCDw designs from provide you this example. Simply running a random Job Level Interface file will give you no predictions on your prospective customer's designs.

Here is a sample, but any questions you may have about this design would be questions you would ask your customer. Keep in mind we did not design this job. Understanding the design through communication with your customer is necessary.
Attachments
BlindDado.zip
(52.28 KiB) Downloaded 299 times
Kerry Fullington
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Post by Kerry Fullington »

I just had a scary thought.

If Thermwood reaches it's goal of being able to accept files for their routers from all the major cabinet design software packages at the job level, would this be the death of eCabinets?

Kerry
DanEpps
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Post by DanEpps »

Let's hope not Kerry.
Rick Palechuk
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Post by Rick Palechuk »

Sounds to me like more router sales, which means more software budget. 8)
Jason Susnjara
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Post by Jason Susnjara »

Hi Kerry,

Believe it or not, there are software users that do not want to switch to eCabinets mostly because they have invested a lot of time and/or money and are familiar with their software. Right now, using a different piece of software requires basically a cnc program for each and every sheet and for each and every flip op. Also, every post processor that is written is different because of all the different machines and configurations that are out there. This causes the software companies to spend lots of time and money for each configuration. We are trying to make that easy with using a Thermwood router: 1. Having one program for a whole job. 2. One post processor for all Thermwood routers. The software companies will still have to create a post for every other machine except for Thermwood. This should make it a very easy decision.

eCabinets will still continue to improve and compete with the others just like it has been.
Jason Susnjara
V.P., Marketing
Thermwood Corp.

On YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/ThermwoodCNC
Thermwood Blog:
http://blog.thermwood.com
Kerry Fullington
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Post by Kerry Fullington »

Hi Jason,

I understand why Thermwood is doing what they are doing. It is a great benefit for selling routers and also for those that already own routers to accept jobs from users of any major design software.
I also understand people not wanting to change software because of their investment in dollars and more important, their investment in time becoming fluent with a design software. I wouldn't want to learn a new package. My thought was that if Thermwood succeeds in making it easy to use any of the major software packages to run at the job level on a Thermwood Router, what would be the \"Business Incentive\" to continue to provide eCabinet Systems software other than the obvious added value it brings when purchasing a Thermwood by saving the new customer a bundle of money on design software.

This was just one of the silly things that pop into my head when I can't sleep at night.

Thanks,

Kerry
Forrest Chapman
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Post by Forrest Chapman »

In my mind eCabinets is still an added value incentive for purchasing the router. It also has become another way for Thermwood to create revenue from hardware sales. Being that its free it broadens the appeal for ones to purchase a Thermwood because of the number of users who may want parts machined.

Forrest
Neville Bastian
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Post by Neville Bastian »

Hi Guys,
The problems that Ecabinets may have in getting people to swing away from their expensive software could be easily overcome by the Ecabinet software having different modes or feel of other existing woodworking software just as the word processing software had to do. If you want a word perfect, word or one of the other popular packages of the day you could get it take on that feel. I think it was mainly keyboard strokes. If Ecabinets feels it can be more user friendly maybe they are working on having a similar feel to the other better known packages.The menu structure is similar having what you can do in those pull down menus?

I think if I was one of the other software companies not mentioning any planetary events you could say they would be relieved to see new users say on the forum they are having problems learning the program. They know once people get hooked on Ecabinets they will be hard to swing to pay 25K upwards for their nesting software.
People are saying once you do a 3 or 5 day training class, the penny drops. It does take a big leap of faith if you are a small shop owner to spend that training money when a little more will get you something in entry level.

It's in Thermwood's best interest to make Ecabinets the quickest program to get your head around. The quicker people who may use the software infrequently due to their volume find they can go back to it and start where they left off without dragging out the manuals or scratching their head which menu has what they want to do. A quick learning curve of a few hours is the goal. If Thermwood can achieve that the game is over for the other software boys. Well almost. There is always a choice of what you use and personal preference. You must have a good reason to go away from the Thermwood track.

From what I can see its just a continuing fine tuning of Ecabinets over the next few years to smooth the rough edges based on forum feedback. That's something the other software guys can't do is spend time on the minor tweaks as they are looking for new bells and whistles to justify the purchase of the bloated software. They might have a lot of cool features but they get released with a number of limitations and never fine tuned on forum feedback. This another area that will swing cabinetmakers who have spent heaps on their software to see a feature that they have on there current software but on Ecabinets it actually achieves the end result better.

It would be nice to have all cabinetmakers especially small cabinetmakers using Ecabinets because then I can flatpak to them easily. I might need to buy a second one?
Regards Neville
Neville Australia
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