Getting Started Basic Cnc Software

[grepper]

There appears to be a penury of Ending support in the U.S. Maybe it's different in Canada, but here the landscape is a barren waste land.

I'm at the point where I just have to make some decisions and forge ahead. I'm starting to feel like a foodie who awakens one morning in the Twilight Zone, only to find himself doomed to spend all eternity without food in a library full of recipe books where piles of food are plainly visible just on the other side of an invisible, yet strangely impenetrable barrier.

Like yourself, I don't want building the mill to be the beginning and end unto itself. I want to make some chips! Nor am I interested in endless mucking around in computer land. Been there. Done that. For many years. Now I just want tools to work well and be reliable. Not that I'm unwilling to expend effort to get there, but the destination is my goal, not an endless journey.

Unfortunately for me, due to the way I think, it's difficult to curtail research until all possible resources on the entire Internet are completely and totally exhausted.

 

[grepper]

At least my needs and goals are modest ones. I'm just looking to be able to do stuff like this:

 

[Jim_Hbar]

There appears to be a penury of Ending support in the U.S.

Had look "penury" up.
I fully understand where you are coming from, but I've lived (and prospered) on the bleeding edge of product development, so it doesn't bother me in the least.

At least my needs and goals are modest ones. I'm just looking to be able to do stuff like this:

 

[TomS]

Jim H. - Yea, I totally get it re: CAD software, hence my original question. At this point I'm not looking for big, complicated and expensive. For getting started I'm looking for easy and inexpensive. Just simple, getting started stuff.

Interesting that Emachineshop is basically a sales assistance tool. I've seen those types of apps on a few different sites. I never thought of just using them as a stand-alone for personal use. I always figured they output some proprietary format that would only be useful for the particular company.

At least at this point I've done enough research and learned enough to know for certain that I have no idea what I'm talking about.

A bit more info on eMachineShop CAD. It can export files in DXF, STL, STEP, and IGS formats. D2NC uses DXF and I've exported a couple of files to Fusion360 in STL format. Haven't yet had a need for STEP or IGS but one never knows. As Steve pointed out you can do just about any 2D and 2.5D machining using these two pieces of software. He's also running a fourth axis. I haven't got that far yet.

Tom S.

 

[JimDawson]

At least my needs and goals are modest ones. I'm just looking to be able to do stuff like this:

Shouldn't be a problem. Just hang a couple more steppers on your mill and you too can have a five axis machine Thinking about the G-code to run that helmet makes my head hurt.

 

[grepper]

I downloaded eMachineShop and opened it. That's as far as I gotten. It opens with a simple tutorial.

Interestingly, Norton Anti Virus declared it a threat and deleted it. I renamed it and saved it again. This time not a problem. I did a real quick search to see what Norton got all flustered about, but found nothing. Really Norton? Your great security is just name matching? Well, huh.

eMS looks like what I'm looking for. Starting out if I can just drill some holes, cut some circles and slots I'll be happy. Lot to learn! I'm sure at some point I'll want more, but for now simple and inexpensive is good.

Speaking of more, I wonder if this thing is using a parallel port for machine control? To me it looks like they must have upgraded to USB:

I am awed by machines like that. Think of the trajectory planning in that that thing! How would you even begin to code something like that? The coordination of axis control is stunning. Amazing. Impressive. Oh, it can do it with titanium too. It's beautiful!

 

[JimDawson]

One possibility that I have avoided mentioning in this discussion is going with a real motion controller. The front end cost is an order of magnitude greater than the hobby class hardware, but there are a number of advantages, not the least of which is the feature expandability. Today you could run Mach3 and open loop steppers, and later upgrade to a full blown servo system and higher end CNC software without changing the controller. This is the way my router started out. It used Mach3, open loop steppers and a Galil motion controller. All I did was add encoders, and wrote the software to run it. The router is still running steppers in a closed loop. Writing CNC software is optional, Mach3 will run a closed loop system just fine, and is fully compatible with Galil motion controllers.

 

[jbolt]

Also look at the PMDX controllers. http://www.pmdx.com/

Awesome customer support.

 

[grepper]

So, the PMDX-424 motion control pulse engine, is basically like the SmoothStepper. Right? I'm not seeing saying that is has trajectory planner on-board.

Awesome support always goes a long way...

 

[grepper]

So I gave eMachineShop a quick once over. Very super simple, albeit crude, cute little app. No layers, brushes or any of extensive tool base that I'm use to in PhotoShop. Just a lightweight, quick little tool with a nifty ruler for quick measurements and a charming little well behaved 3D view to boot. Really easy to make holes and thread them, and it understands object grouping, and has some radius tools, etc.

Seems like every time I get out the crane, haul up PhotoShop and try to do anything complicated like raster edge detection, object selection, layer blending, etc., I have to refer to the help. Something I want to avoid getting started with CNC.

I can see right away where that simplicity will be limiting, but for right now it's about what I am looking for. Quick, simple , lightweight and FREE! Should be perfect for my first chips! I'll get D2nc and give it a try. Thanks for the suggestion Jumps4 (Steve)!

Any decent, FREE CAM suggestions?