Cad Cam

[98rangerll]

what's a good cad cam software that's not going to make me take out a loan that's reasonable priced and works decently any ideas mare appreciated was looking at bobcad but not sure what I think and it seams real pricey until you look at mastercam

 

[dracozny]

Besides a budget what are you designing for, router, mill, lathe? Do you need 3, 4, 5, 6 axis? I am assuming windows OS since you mentioned BOBcad. this question has been asked before of course. I use Librecad for a number of things. if I need 3d functionality I often will go to either Freecad or Blender. Most of my cam operations I can do with heekscad/cam and I can also delve into blendercam for other things. If the part is real simple I just write the gcode by hand forgetting all the cad/cam mess.

 

[RVJimD]

I don't mean to go off topic here, but I am interested in the topic and dracozny's reply makes me wonder if there is a good video showing the complete process from initial design, use of the cad software, generating g code and running g the code on a mill? I don't have a CNC mill, I may eventually conver mine. I also do NOT use any sort of CAD software, but if I could find something as described by the original post. I should be sure to learn a CAD package that could be used by my mill if it were converted to CNC.

Jim

 

[Boswell]

First there are many choices all with pro's and con's. You will also find that people can get fairly passionate about the software they use. I am sure that you will get many replies by people telling you what they use. I strongly suggest that you spend some meaningful time with the forum search engine as this question comes up about once a month and so there are many threads with many more answers.

Also be sure to read the "Sticky Thread" by Jumps4 called "CNC from sketch to part the way I do it". It, of course, is not the only way to do it but is a great introduction to the process flow needed

 

[jumps4]

I use Emachineshop for cad and d2nc for cam on most of what I do on the mill
total investment including mach3 is about $250
I have 39 videos showing how I do it in a section here. the quality of the first videos are poor
but I purchased screen capture software and they get better.
http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/cnc-from-sketch-to-part-the-way-i-do-it.19633/

Steve

Lol , me and Boswell were typing at the same time

 

[RVJimD]

Steve,

Thanks for the videos! I have just started watching them! I am going to try and get a bit more educated on the entire topic before I do anything about the "itch".

Jim

 

[Bill C.]

Check out YouTube for videos. Most of the ones I have seen are demos of new CNC machines. Don't get me wrong they are interesting and amazing but beyond me. Just be sure the CAD program will talk to the CAM program. I use stand alone CAD ware.

 

[davidh]

as an old fart here on the forum, i never in a million years would have dreamed i could do the cad thing. for the past couple months i have been spending a lot of time looking at a lot of youtubes and jumps4 steve and his videos looks as simple as it could get. thank you steve for your fine teaching.
another interesting one was aspire by metric, if i remember right it was a tad more $$ thann i wanted to spend this go around.
yesterday afternoon i actually made a scaled drawing with various holes in it, and i was able to delete extra lines and stuff, using "emachineshop" program. took about 3 hours of screwing around but i was right proud. then i proceeded to draw the same thing again, using different approaches, that took about 45 minutes. today i will try to marry it to the cam and then to mach3. there really is lot of things to remember, but, it seems that most of the easy programs operate about the same. i have inkscape because it was free and have watched the english lady's tutorials on you tube until I'm starting to talk like them. that program is very powerful in my opinion. another tube to watch is bt mr. caleb peters. he has a few very good ones. and his recommendation is cut2d & easy cam so thats another one i may purchase. my goal is to make a drawing, and get mach3 to simulate it. then, off to the build / modification / installation of all the things i have purchased.

 

[brav65]

Very timely post. I am in the middle of designing a CNC router that I will build with my son this summer. He is taking some engineering classes this summer and a they will be covering robotics and prototyping as a couple of the sections.

I am just starting to look at CAD/CAM software. I want to get something that will be useful for my son and translate into usable skill for him to use in school. I don't mind spending some money I just don't want to throw it away. My son is planning to go to Cal Tech or MIT (he is 12 but highly motivated) so this is an investment in his future.

 

[Boswell]

Brav65, look into the education versions of Autocad and Solidworks for the CAD component. These are normally very expensive but both offer significant discounts for students and are widely used in schools. As for CAM there might be EDU discounts for the major players here as well.