I have a small cnc machine that uses a wood router, and i am using it primarly as a cnc drilling machine to accurately drill holes into my plywood. Is there a simple software out there where you can input x and y and z travel without having to do it all on a cad program? Thank you in advance for your help.

woodworker2,
All of the control programs I am familar with have what is known as MDI mode or Manual input mode. This is like a simple command line type of operation where you might enter G0 X2 Y3 <enter> and the machine would move to that position. This is a simple explination.
My favorite is TurboCnc (www.dakeng.com) which is a low priced, DOS based program that will run on just about any dos based machine.

Mach3 controller software from Artsoft has fill in the blank wizards, which sound like what you are looking for. It would require you changing to that controller or learn how to write your own wizards for you present controller.

Mike

Try windows "Notepad"

Thanks guys, it is supposed to come with the mach 2 controlling software, would that have the same function as Mach 3?

Mach3 is quite a bit more advanced than Mach2. I don't know for sure about all the different wizards included with Mach2 or 3 but Brian Barker of Newfangled fame is the writer of many of the wizards and also sells a small add on pack that would be worth looking into.

Could I ask if your hole pattern is repeatable, or is there several different patterns, or no particular pattern? The reason I ask is because of one post here. Notepad was mentioned which of course indicated hand writting the code. It would not be hard to do if you did not have a lot of different patterns and if it was something that was going to be repeated multiple times.

Mike

I have a small cnc machine that uses a wood router, and i am using it primarly as a cnc drilling machine to accurately drill holes into my plywood. Is there a simple software out there where you can input x and y and z travel without having to do it all on a cad program? Thank you in advance for your help.

Can your machine interpret standard G-code programs and process calls to subprograms. One way that you can drill a standard sequence of hole types in various locations is to have all the commands related to drilling speed, depth, countersinking, etc in one program and all the hole locations in another program. The first program sets up the conditions, speed feed, peck distance, for a drilling canned cycle such as G83 and then calls the other program via a G98 Pnnnnn (or sometimes Onnnnn) command for the locations of the holes.

A modal machine that will accept the G83 command only needs input of X Y coordinates, it will autamatically repeat the G83 at every coordinate in the program untill the cycle is cancelled (G80).
This is doing every hole the same, if every hole is different it will probably be easiest to use CAM.

Turmite, The holes are repeatable, but there is about four seperate patterns. Actually the machine will interprate g-codes. I was looking for an easier way than trying to put all of it on a cad program and then load it into the computer. The cad file must be written in dxf file format to be converted with no problem. The machine is a 3D router. It is on order. It comes with the control box and Mach 2 operating system.

WoodWorker2: I wrote this for the same reasons as you indicated. It might be a help. There is a Visual Basic program that runs when you hit the button to create the G Code. The code is displayed and written to an output file.

Woodworker Mach2 has a hole drilling wizard in it that will create your gcode for you. I'll take a look on mine and see how it works.

Mike

Thank you guys, I really appreciate your input. I know what I am doing with the products I am building, and I know that This cnc machine will greatly speed up my work, but I am new and I just don't have the knowledge and programming fully understood just yet.

what kind of software are you using with your machine.
But, check or try mastercam vers. 9 and X this software give you afull control in any drilling operation you plan to do.