Hello Mike,
This really helps out. I can follow every thing because you talked to my level. The last two days here will help me get going again. I have previously found myself posting in the wrong forum and stumbling around quite lost and stuck.
Thanks, Delwood
Originally Posted by BrassBuilder  Hi Delwood,
I got most of my software because of the tutorials available. If you search ebay, type "turbocad* tutorial*" (without the quotes, but in this case it really does not matter. Type in the two stars after each word though) and that will bring up a couple of matches. Mine came with a couple of books and 2 or three CDs. They really helped.
Mach3 is very popular on the board. The Mach3 site has video tutorials to get you going. There was information in there that helped me get things figured out.
http://www.artsoftcontrols.com/artsoft/index/index.htm
Click on tutorials and then video tutorials. I also printed out the operating manual. That gave me a few more pointers.
I started using CamBam because of a recommendation on the board. I think it was from Hoss, but I don't remember completely. I think SheetCam would be a good choice too, although it will cost around $150 to get it registered. I think it is limited to around 300 lines of code. I messed around with it a little, but ultimately went back to CamBam because it just seemed to be a little easier to pick up (and it was free). CamBam has a forum for help, of which I have used a little. On one of my questions the creator of CamBam had me post my drawing on site and he looked at it personally. There are also a couple of short getting started tutorials on site. I also post as BrassBuilder on the CamBam forums.
And...for one last resource...take a look at Hoss's site. I think he is the master of CNC on this board. LOL. His X2 is called "The Freak" if that tells you anything with what he did to his X2.  It is a work of art and in a class all by himself.
http://www.hossmachine.com/cnc_conversion.html
He had motor settings and things posted that helped me get stuff figured out on mine.
Read back through my previous posts because there is a wealth of info in there that might save you from repeating my same questions. Left click my name and then click on "find all posts".
There are other software packages that will do a very fine job in doing all the above too. There is a free CAD program that I've heard good things about but I have never looked at it. SOmething like A9CAD....something like that. But the above combination is working for me...so far.
One last thing...I started using the CAD software around a year before I started the CNC process. I had that down fairly well by the time that I got my mill CNCd. I didn't have to spend a lot of my time learning CAD on top of everything else.
Hope this helps!
Mike |