Newbie- Needing help with software, be gentle

[sebtiger]

Hi there all

Been reading for a while but have been a bit afraid to post as I am a complete noob. Saying that I am finding this forum quite daunting so if there are any threads that could be alot of help could you please point me in the right direction.

I won a design competition december last year and won some money.

With it I have built my own cnc milling/engraving machine



It was loosely based around the rockcliff design but things changed as I went on.

Everything has been wired up and it all works well. I am using my dremel multipro with some high speed cutters and engraving v-bits.

I am running Mach 3 and its running things fine. I have managed to get some nice etchings in plastic and wood.







These are really more of a good addition to what I want to be able to do.

I am looking to be able to cut peices of acrylic out. Similar to those wooden dinosaur skeletons.

So far for my etchings and engravings I have been using bmp2din and for the cutting and milling I have been trying to get my head round gsimple. Which is proving to be harder than I thought.

So I have a few questions and am hoping you wont all flame me with my very noob questions.

Is gsimple the best free peice of software for generating my gcode and such from dxf or within the program?

Another problem I have been getting is melting and a huge inaccuracy when the tool comes down into the acrylic. It goes straight down the 4mm in one go. I would love it to do multiple passes taking off 0.2mm at a time to avoid melting the acrylic. But I don't know how to do it in gsimple.

Hmmm there is probably more but that is all that comes to mind at the moment.

Thank you very much in advance

Seb

[Al_The_Man]

Hardly 'a complete noob' if you have got this far.
Al.

[lovebugjunkie]

Seb

I can’t answer you question about gsimple, but if you want some very good 2d/3d cad/cam software that is very easy to use I suggest you have a look at the vectric products. For 2d projects I have read a lot of good comments about Cut2d, and for $150.00 I consider that almost free for what you get.

I have VcarvePro and PhotoVcarve and am more than happy with them.

George