Software advice please, cad, cam.

[Dazza]

I know this has been asked a thousand times before (sorry).

Well my machine is pretty much finished, that is I'm pretty confident it will do what I want it to do for now. Now comes the hardest part well for me anyway, choosing and learning the software particularly the CAD software I have never done any Cad work before.

Some of the things that I would like to do with this machine for now is cut vinyl for stickers and signs from timber and plastic.

Some of the software packages I have found are very expensive, cut2d is reasonably priced but I don't think it's going to do all that I need.

Any advice or help is greatly appreciated.

Darren.

[gully]

Hi Darren,
If what you are saying is that you want to use your machine for signage production. You might get by using coreldraw or similar to start with, but for any serious stuff you will need to bite the bullet (take that to mean you will need to invest some serious cash) and be looking at one of the better dedicated signage packages such as SignWizard, Flexisign etc.
They are generally easy to use for both signage and general cad work and will export DXF for use in CUT2D.

Im interested to see how you go cutting vinyl out, I assume that you will have, or plan to fit swivel headed knife type of attachement to the machine for that.

good luck

Gully

[proengines]

Hey Dazza, Solid Edge does a free 2d cad package which is pretty impressive considering it's free. I think it's a ploy to get people away from other cad packages to eventually have them using Solid Edge ST3 or 4 if it's out yet. The 3d stuff is amazing software but not cheap.

For CAM, take a look at Sheetcam. It's very simple to use and will do pretty much everything 2.5d. It's about $170 to buy a licence and worth every cent of it.

Another to look at is D2NC, it integrates well with Mach3 and is about $70 or so. I use it all the time for simple jobs and you'll have g-code from an imported dxf in a minute or so.

Cheers,
Greg

[Bob Adams]

Hey Dazza, Solid Edge does a free 2d cad package which is pretty impressive considering it's free. I think it's a ploy to get people away from other cad packages to eventually have them using Solid Edge ST3 or 4 if it's out yet. The 3d stuff is amazing software but not cheap.

For CAM, take a look at Sheetcam. It's very simple to use and will do pretty much everything 2.5d. It's about $170 to buy a licence and worth every cent of it.

Another to look at is D2NC, it integrates well with Mach3 and is about $70 or so. I use it all the time for simple jobs and you'll have g-code from an imported dxf in a minute or so.

Cheers,
Greg

Here's another low cost CAD CAM DXF to Gcode called CNC Programming Tools. Offers programs for Lathe, Mill, and Plasma.
Just Google CAD2Gcode or go here www.cad2gcode.com