Right now, the CAM pugin for TurboCad seems ideal (I can get it for free).
I use TurboCad almost exlusivley for drawing, so it seems a logical choice.
I am using EMC2 for machine control and just got that working today. I dont have a wiring diagram for the motors, but they are working. I'm not sure if they are woring in the right direction however.............
I just hope that EMC will be able to read the gcode that TurboCAD/CAM produces.
I have enough electronics to build 2 machines; one small and one medium. I'm going to start on the small one first and I would be happy to get it to draw with a pencil.
I will then focus on the larger machine to do larger engravings and router work. I will probably need a true 3d gcode generator sometime in the future for carvings.
The main goal, and my reason for starting this project was to engrave on curved survaces (i.e. drums). I would buld the x axis as some sort of rotory table that will turn the drum as opposed to the traditional linear motion.  |