Hello,
sorry to enter your discussion so late, but i have just joined the forum. I use CU+AeroPack to design RC-airplane models and mill the molds for the wings and fuelage on a self made 3 Axis portal milling machine.
I was also looking for a reasonable priced CAM and found a start up company in Germany (
http://www.condacam.de/) who offers a reasonable priced CAM with good functionality and easy to use. They also desiged a post processor (within 2 days!) for my CNC software free of charge. The only disadvantage what I can see is that the software is only available German right now, but..... maybe in the future they may translate it also in english.
There are 2 different version available:
CondaCam1.1 at 1600 Euro
3D-> 18 strategies, Realtime Simulation, 2 and 2.5 D Strategies, Postprocessor Editor+Assistent.
CondaCam1.1-LT at 600 Euro
3D-> 9 strategies, Realtime Simulation, 2 and 2.5 D Strategies, Postprocessor Editor+Assistent.
You also can upgrade from LT to full by just paying the price difference.
You can download a demo from the website
http://www.condacam.de/I also own DeskProto 4.1(
http://www.deskproto.com) at similar pricing. Their great asset is an assistent function when you start up the program it virtally walks you through the whole process from loading the file, position on the tool.....to creation of the toolpaths-> great! DeskProto can handle 3,4 and 5 Axis milling machines (the standard post processors include various Roland tools) but the functionality is somewhat limited compared to condacam. Almost any language you desire is available.
A fully functional demo (30 days trial) is available for download too.
Mabe you would like to give it a try,
Hans