Originally Posted by Crawler374  So how are you using this? Are you drawing on Emachineshop, then transporting to another CAD program then to your CNC? Could you give me a few steps on how to do this? I would like to start getting my software and drawing while I'm waiting on parts.  |
For simple stuff (square things, circles, etc..) I just draw the part with the Emachineshop software, then use the "contour" feature to make my toolpath around the part. (say I have a 1" circle to cut, from the inside. I'll "contour" inside .0625" for a 1/8" tool, then that becomes my toolpath.) Then I'll just write the G-code by hand. For simple stuff it's not bad. For more complicated stuff, I'll draw and do the same "contour" thing but then export those lines as a .DXF file and then suck it into BobCad to generate the G-code. For what it's worth, I hate BobCad but the sales guys sucked me into it like so many other people... I've tried LazyCam that comes with MACH3, but couldn't figure it out..