Machsupport Forum

G-Code, CAD, and CAM => G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions => Topic started by: magicniner on April 23, 2013, 03:40:28 PM

Title: All Dressed Up & No-Where To Go?
Post by: magicniner on April 23, 2013, 03:40:28 PM

Having resolved some initial issues with my mill ( the DC spindle motor &/or drive kicking out enough EM inteference to cause occasional stepper jitter ) I now find myself with a fully functional benchtop CNC mill - and no means to generate code to run it.
I wondered does anyone have any suggestions for affordable CAD/CAM solutions for use alongside MACH3 for a complete newb hobbyist?
Any input would be greatly appreciated,
Regards,
Nick

Title: Re: All Dressed Up & No-Where To Go?
Post by: Tweakie.CNC on April 24, 2013, 02:50:34 AM

Hi Nick,

Welcome to the forum.

The first software that I started out with was G-Simple http://www.gsimple.eu/ it's pretty basic but it's free and may give you an initial start.

Tweakie.

Title: Re: All Dressed Up & No-Where To Go?
Post by: magicniner on April 24, 2013, 05:10:37 AM

Thanks Tweakie,
That looks positive, I only need to make some fairly basic objects to begin with, I'll give it a go,

 - Nick

Title: Re: All Dressed Up & No-Where To Go?
Post by: magicniner on May 19, 2013, 03:22:39 PM

I'd like to thank Tweakie, plus all those who replied via PM for some brilliant assistance and advice, with no prior experience I needed to get up and running, with the assistance provided I narrowed down the options and bought Bob-Cad/Cam, the Video Professor DVDs which came (very quickly for USA to UK shipping!) with the software are proving a boon to a complete novice,
Regards & Thanks,
Nick

Title: Re: All Dressed Up & No-Where To Go?
Post by: crossfire on June 13, 2013, 12:35:12 PM

Try inkscape with gcodetools added. both free.

Larry

Title: All Dressed Up & No-Where To Go?
Post by: Fastest1 on June 13, 2013, 03:25:08 PM

CamBam is easy to use and affordable also.

Title: Re: All Dressed Up & No-Where To Go?
Post by: Analias on June 14, 2013, 08:18:36 PM

I've been very happy with Alibre PE and Bobcad V25.  You should be able to talk the sales folks down to under $1000 total for both.


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 2

Title: All Dressed Up & No-Where To Go?
Post by: dr.fiero on June 15, 2013, 01:20:48 AM

I got Alibre PE (oh sorry - Geomagic!  Stupid new name) for $100 out of them. 

After I got the demo, they kept calling me.  Only way to make them shut up was to inform them that I'd just lost my job (I had!) and didn't have any funds to blow on there stuff.  So they offered it to me for $100.