Howcome ecabinet is free? - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

Kennyboy · 10-13-2009, 12:27 AM

My company has been using 20/20 Design for kitchen cabinet layout. Each license cost thousands of dollar. I heard ecabinet is a free software. Is there a catch?

BKFranks · 10-13-2009, 08:14 AM

There's no catch. You have to obtain the license from them. Thermwood makes the software for use with their cnc routers they manufacture.

ScipioAfricanus · 10-13-2009, 01:38 PM

Ecabinets is not as polished a program as 20/20 is but it is a very nice program none the less.

The interface is a bit clunky but I understand that the new one will be much nicer, can't wait for it to come out.

Andy.

UpNorth · 10-16-2009, 09:38 AM

I thought 20/20 was for one who BUYS or SELLS cabinets but does not build them, while eCabs is for someone who will be doing the build. Big diff.

I know eCabs pretty well and used to use it when building kitchens, but it has a quite steep and long learning curve, IMHO.

The package is used mostly by shops operating with a Thermwood CNC router, with which it interfaces directly. It is also used by a lot of people operating "saw shops," making carcase parts using tablesaws, tracksaws, or sliders, then maybe line drills and other setups, but with no CNC. Their user forum is populated by a mix of both types of people, and also by a small group of users who just f*art around with the software because they enjoy producing the cab and furniture renders it will do. That's what happens when you can get free software of this capability.

Kennyboy · 10-17-2009, 02:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UpNorth

I thought 20/20 was for one who BUYS or SELLS cabinets but does not build them, while eCabs is for someone who will be doing the build. Big diff.

You are correct! I got a copy of E-cabinet and it's a little more complicated than 20/20. In 20/20, I can place all the required cabinet + countertop within minutes. E-cabinet seems to be a software for custom build cabinet shop.

Are there other program similar to 20/20? Where the user can generate a kitchen layout in a short amount of time?

seabolt · 10-17-2009, 11:09 AM

Once you build some cabinet libraries (or you can download some from the thermwood site) you can put together a kitchen layout pretty fast. You just drag and drop cabinets into place and you can modify their size, etc. right in the layout designer.

Plan on spending a lot of time with the manual and tutorials if you want to figure it all out - but that's true with pretty much all design software.

**Leo G** · 10-17-2009, 11:40 AM

Can 20/20 do something like this? I just really don't know because I have never seen or used it before. Took about 20 minutes to make and arrange these cabinets in eCabs.

Kennyboy · 10-21-2009, 12:57 AM

Does KCD works as well as 20/20 Design Software?