Mach3 in relation to alphaCam

[Kai]

Well to stat with hello people.

I am really new to all this and have or will have 2 new bits of kit soon
both denford
a starmill and a starturn both converted to work with mach3 hence the posts on here.

Now the fun starts I am at college (mature student 37) doing a city and guilds in CNC operation.
I always wanted to learn cnc and love making little things here and there.

Enter mid life crisis or so says the wife and the news of being made redundent at christmas.
So time to get off my arse and do IT.

At the college they use alphaCam to run the machine we are learning on a Dugard Eagle 1000/Fanuc 0i_MB Controller.
With being really new I am not sure of the differance between the two, so is there anyone out there that could give me a few pointers please.
I am in the middle of reading the manual so please bear with me In alphacam we saved the Gcode to a file and sent it to the mill is this the same with mach3?

[Hood]

Mach follows Fanuc way of doing things fairly closely so if your code is suitable for a Fanuc the chances are it will work fine with Mach.
Hood

[Kai]

thats great then I think if I understand you I can just port the code over to mach and it should work?

I am trying to find material to read to tell me what fanuc is I have heard it metioned but I don't know really what it is as I posted I am very new to all this
and the terms  and names for stuff is new to me.

In alphacam you can prove or test you code is this possible in mach as well so you can create you billet and see if the gode will do as planned?
I am reading the manual but have not seen this mentioned yet so if it is later then I have just not got to it yet so sorry for teh dimb question.

[Hood]

When you load the code Mach will draw a toolpath and you can rotate and zoom in/out and see what it looks like but it will not show the stock getting removed like CAM programmes will.
Hood

[ger21]

Fanuc is the equivalent to Mach3 in your case. Both are machine controls that run g-code.

AlphaCAM is a CAM program that creates the g-code. It doesn't run the machine, the Fanuc control does.

There are inexpensive CAM programs that can do simulations similar to AlphaCAM's. See Vectric's products at www.Vectric.com

[Kai]

many thanks guys and poss girls lol  for that I like the look of mach and from what I have read it looks to be a great tool that once you get to grips with it yo can do good things and I don't have to relearn of transfer that much from my college stuff.

[Kai]

Not really the same question but I have autodesk and 3DSMax can either of these work with mach 3 or am I vest using solid works? ( I dont know this one that well)

[Hood]

What you are talking about (autodesk and solidworks ) are  CAD programmes, you then need to use CAM to convert the CAD drawing to G-CODE. LazyCAM that comes with Mach does some basic stuff which may be enough but if not you will need to get a CAM programme.
Hood

[Kai]

I have been quiet lucky that I have been given a machine PC that has a good install of solid works and solidCAM and alphacam.
I only asked about the 3dsmax as I have used it before and a little more familiar with that.