Best CAM software

[Jared]

MasterCAM is expensive, but they may give a pretty good educational discount. It is significantly harder to use than HSMWorks. I don't think the learning curve for MasterCAM is worth it for just the tabs. You'll lose the nice integration between CAD and CAM and you'll have to redo all your CAM if you make a tiny change to your part most of the time.

It's quite easy to add your own tabs in HSMWorks. I usually make a configuration of the part that contains the stock/tabs/fixtures to make sure everything fits. It's better to spend the extra 20 minutes to draw up the part in the machine with the tools/tool holders than to spend hours designing something only to find that the tool/machine can't reach.