HEy, I was woundering if anyone had any good ideas of a good program thats free that i could download so i can convert files from solidworks into something usful in mach. I cant use dxf because i want to make the things have depth and stuff and i dont know how to make depth and the 3d sort of thing unless i use solidworks.

What you are asking for is a 3d CAM program. As far as I know there is no free 3D CAM programs availiable. This is also where it starts to get expensive. Let us know if you do find anything for free.

MeshCAM is about the cheapest you'll find. www.meshcam.com

Mecsoft, who sells RhinoCAM and VisualMill, have a small application called FreeMill.

As the name indicates, it is free. It is limited in the filetypes it can import, but I have played with saving SolidWorks files as .STL and FreeMill opens those just fine. It produces G-code and has something like 50 post processors. I have made a couple of small parts just to learn.

One problem I had with it was that the application would blow up in one of the displays. Turned out to be caused by the display card. If you turn off Hardware Acceleration it works.

The program can be downloaded from Mecsoft's website at: http://www.mecsoft.com/Mec/Products/FreeMill.shtml

They require that you register and you will then get a password in email.

Good luck
Steen