hi davek0974,
sounds like youre sorted with software for the moment. I tried Fusion and it wasn't bad, the CAM is pretty seemless with the CAD. In the end I found the lack of 'determinism'
let it down. No doubt the programers of Fusion think their software is intuitive it can also be hard to control both CAD and CAM. It is free tho....
I went back to Mastercam which is not and can be cussed as hell at times but dependable and configurable.
I have a smaller spindle, 750W and use it a lot for PCB's and some aluminium. It is NOT up to steel. All the high speed spindles have poor torque at low speeds and if the spindle
stalls you have yet another broken tool. Even with 1/4" tools I try to get the speed down to 5000 rpm to save the tool from burning up but the wee spindle has very low
torque at that speed and has cost me a number of tools as a result.
So much so that I bought a second hand 2.8kW servo off Ebay with 12Nm rated and 48Nm overload at 3000rpm. Imagined I was going to run it with a sensorless vector
type VFD. That proved to be a mistake. My own experience and reports on CNCzone suggest sensorless vector drives work but well short of that than can be achieved by
a genuine servodrive. Theres the rub, plenty of good servos cheap but a mating drive is bloody expensive. I have spent the last two months building my own drive from
scratch and been a hell of a learnnig curve! Well on track tho...
If you want to cut metal, steel or tougher you will need a spindle capable of low speeds with plenty of torque, suggests an induction motor with gear or belt reduction
unless you can spend BIG bucks on a direct drive servo or async drive.
Good luck, keep posting, it great to hear how folks progress, and CNC addicts them!!!!
Craig