Up until now, when clients want furniture grade built-ins/cabinets custom made, I’ve done all my design work with pencil, paper, and scales. Takes lots of time, but that’s how I’ve always done it.
Now, I just don’t have the time, and the custom cabinet requests are becoming more frequent, so I was looking for some software to help in the design/cutlist process.
The budget will allow upwards of $500-600. I’ve Googled and looked at some of the stuff out there, but a lot of them don’t offer trial versions, you buy the bundle and have a 30 day return window if’n you don’t like it. I was looking for something tried and true, I guess.
Any experiance out there with this sort of software? (Maybe I’ll post this on Knots, as well.)
Thanks
“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” Invictus, by Henley.
Replies
Go to Thermwood's eCabinets site and hang out for a while as a lurker.
The software is used for cabinets, built-ins, and furniture.
The dirty little secret is that it is free. Yes, free. Use the website to send in your request, and within a week, your CD arrives via mail. Depending on your computer modeling skills and ability to operate parametric design software, you may pick it up fast on your own, or you may go to class and learn, or you may give up and never learn.
Yes, it is designed to feed a Thermwood CNC machine code for cutting parts, but a WHOLE LOTTA folks are using it in what I call a "saw shop" mode, that is, they are cutting parts with conventional non-CNC gear.
email me privately and I will tell you a whole lot more about this.
I'm gonna have to go with Gene on this one. I've had eCabinet for about three years now. I finally broke down and took a week-long course at the Thermwood headquarters back in May. Wow! I had been doing my designs by hand, and now something that would take me all day to do is cut down to a couple hours. The learning curve is a bit higher from what I have heard, that is where the training classes come in handy. And the beauty of the System is Production Sharing. I can design cabinets in the software, send the file to a local shop, and have all my box parts cut.
I recently did a bar for a customer(it's in the photo thread), and this is the first job I had parts cut on CNC. I had seven sheets of ply to be cut....One hour is all it took to cut including blind tenons and shelf pin holes. And the boxes assemble like a glove.
I looked into several design programs, and the one thing that kept coming back at me was cost. Like Gene said eCabs is free, and they have a great forum where you can pick up a lot of good information. I just wonder why I didn't take the class sooner.
Mitch
Edited 11/13/2007 8:30 pm ET by MRockwell
I forgot to attach these pics of the eCabs rendering of the finished bar I posted in the photo gallery.
The first two pics were the final design the customers selected. The last two pics were after a few minor tweaks to make the bar fit the space.
Mitch
there is a design programs thread, look there