I'm a total beginner when it comes to CNC but I managed to build my own cnc router and I've been hammering my way through the setup of Mach 3, frying my brain learning some basic autocad, and pulling out my hair trying to figure out the best way to get a basic design from autocad turned into proper g-code and into Mach.  I can "do" it, but the code generally needs a bunch of tweaking.  I'm trying to find something that is intelligent enough to cut out centers before the outside, figure out cutter offsets, drill holes, nesting, etc.  I wanted to give lazy cam a look and all the docs I've read say it comes with the Mach 3 download, but the only thing I seem to get is Mach 3.  I haven't purchased Mach 3 yet because frankly I'm too much of a newbie at this point to determine if it's the best product for me or not.  It "seems" to fit the bill as far as I can tell but I'm just not ready yet to commit.  I was hoping Lazy Cam would give me that more or less seemless integration between CAD and Mach but as of now I don't have a clue.  Can someone point me to the program, or have I misunderstood and purchasing Mach is a prerequisite?

Here is where you can open it from Mach3 Hope that helps and have fun.

Here is where you can open it from Mach3 Hope that helps and have fun.

Ok, that kind of threw me because that option didn't exist in the file menu of my version of Mach.  I had assumed that lazy cam came with ALL versions of Mach 3 since the website says "LazyCAM Beta 1.1 Now included in Mach3 downloads".  I had downloaded the lockdown version since I understood it to be the last known stable release and version 1.90 was still "in development".  Anyhow, I downloaded the 1.90 version and lazy cam is there.  Thanks for the heads up!  I'm curious though, if I buy Mach 3 which version will I be getting, R1.84 or D1.90 and will it include lazy cam?   The website isn't real clear on these points.

Sorry about that 

The license that you get will be good for every version of Mach3 that we ever do

Sorry about that

The license that you get will be good for every version of Mach3 that we ever do

Ok, this part I got.     But...I swear I'm not trying to be a pest but I'm still a little unclear.  I guess I'm confused by the availability of two different versions of Mach 3 right NOW.  I first dloaded 1.84 because I thought it was the recommended version, and 1.90 was a "still in development" beta type version, so...    If I were to register right now, which version is the recommended for-sure-it's-stable version, and would that version include lazy cam?  I'm "guessing" that in order to get lazy cam I have to have 1.90, and that would be fine but I had just assumed that "ongoing development" meant beta version with potential bugginess, and I'm too much of a cherry to know if I'm experiencing a bug or just royally screwing the pooch.   

LCam is buggy But that is getting better by the day  I have been running 1.90.********* and it has been running great! I think you will see 1.84 go away soon because 1.94 has been running well. If you think it is a program bug please post it and I will see what I can do to help! We are trying to make this as simple as possible to the end users so even if it is not a bug but something that is unclear we will so our best to fix it...

Thank you
Brian

LCam is buggy But that is getting better by the day I have been running 1.90.********* and it has been running great! I think you will see 1.84 go away soon because 1.94 has been running well. If you think it is a program bug please post it and I will see what I can do to help! We are trying to make this as simple as possible to the end users so even if it is not a bug but something that is unclear we will so our best to fix it...

Thank you
Brian

Fair enough!   Thanks for info.

Man, am I glad for this thread! Thanks for asking the original question, as I did EXACTLY the same thing, and was too afraid to ask... (not that anyone has been even a little less than helpful here...).  I am just the newbie to the whole CNC thing, and I did just as you: built my own 3 axis mill, and now an trying to learn the software thing so I can actually use it

Thanks for the question, and thanks Brian for all of the patient answers! I have been reading the EMC2 users manual to learn the basics of nc coding, and was feeling as though I was going to have to live with the import DXF feature of the Mach 3 program, and just tweek the files until I got a license for Mach 3...

So, thanks for the info. I'm off to the downloads page

Mark

I just loaded Ver 1.90 to try out Lazycam, it looks nice, but I couldnt really get it to convert the file to g-code. it did vectorize, but wouldnt post code to the Mach program,  said it couldnt find it. 

Anyway, when I went back to Mach I loaded a G-code program known to work, but the new ver. wouldnt run the file.  It went to the second line and hung.  I reloaded 1.84 back and it runs it fine.  Whats up with 1.90?  Are people using it to cut with?