Lamentations of a newbie...

[saturnnights]

Originally Posted by Harry Taylor Nobody seems to use them anymore, but, there's always the public library. A lot of colleges & universities will allow anyone to use their libraries, also. Most require you to be a student or instructor to borrow books, though. Still, a few hours here and there at the local community college should allow you to start filling in those knowledge gaps. Best of all it's free or nearly free! HayTay

Oh man, that's a sore subject - my city just built a 30-million library...
I went there with my wife and asked for help finding the milling/CNC section. I don't think they had a book newer than I was old (40). The CNC was just NC - no computer stuff and the other books on milling in general were yellowed and had photos of equipment that if I owned would be worth a fortune today

[Geof]

Originally Posted by saturnnights Oh man, that's a sore subject - my city just built a 30-million library......I don't think they had a book newer than I was old (40). The CNC was just NC - no computer stuff......

Don't worry the G codes and M codes are still (mostly) the same and I just checked a machine manual printed in 2001 which still refers to M30 as program end and rewind!

[HayTay]

my city just built a 30-million library... I went there with my wife and asked for help finding the milling/CNC section. I don't think they had a book newer than I was old (40). The CNC was just NC - no computer stuff and the other books on milling in general were yellowed

That's a bummer with the $30M library.

Do you have a local Vo-Tech School or Technical Community College? They should have more up-to-date material (or, at least, I hope they do!).

HayTay

[saturnnights]

Originally Posted by CNCRob Im not sure if they still do it or not but SheetCam used to offer a full funtional license for 30 days, If you email them they would send it out. Im not sure if you have aready did that or not.

You know, I started to think about this and realized (yes, I'm buried/confused in all of this demo testing) that back on 1/25 I'd sent a request for the 30-day evaluation license. They never responded, so I've just sent another request - maybe this will get through?

Thanks!
Mark

[Bluesman]

Originally Posted by saturnnights Oh man, that's a sore subject - my city just built a 30-million library... I went there with my wife and asked for help finding the milling/CNC section. I don't think they had a book newer than I was old (40). The CNC was just NC - no computer stuff and the other books on milling in general were yellowed and had photos of equipment that if I owned would be worth a fortune today

Wow what a coencident my town just waisted 30 mil on a library that know body will ever use. You would not be from Bay City would you? I find it hard to believ any other town would find a need for that kind of money waist besides our town

Bluesman

[saturnnights]

Originally Posted by Bluesman Wow what a coencident my town just waisted 30 mil on a library that know body will ever use. You would not be from Bay City would you? I find it hard to believ any other town would find a need for that kind of money waist besides our town Bluesman

I'm from Akron, OH. I'll admit, the building is beautifu - but mostly empty, except for the computer terminals where you'll find people sitting doing things that they probably don't want their family members to know about.
But the book selection is embarrassing. It looks like they've stocked the entire library with junk found in old attics. They have a bunch of conference rooms too - those get used by local politicians for campaign meetings and whatnot. All in all, this library is a waste of tax dollars. We'll probably have a levy on the ballot soon to pay for heating increases - gotta keep those 50-foot, glass ceilings warm...

[densman]

7 easy steps to CNC programing, a beginers guide.
David S. Hayden
www.haydenpub.com
I see copys of this on E bay, exellent book.

[ZipSnipe]

Hey Saturn, I too have been downloading different software for cnc and cad. However I don,t have a cnc mill yet. I can tell you this that I have decided to take a cnc programming course at my local community college. Its a short 6 week course (one day aweek) it was only $169.00 I figured its worth it becuz you have someone teaching you on a live machine. You can touch it, you can see it work. As for software, my criteria was, I want to draw a flat outline of my project, which ever program allowed me to do this easily will be the one I choose. Turbo cad did this fairly easy. However it expensive. As for cam I still don,t have much of a clue and the same goes for the cnc software. But my point is look online at the courses offered by your local community college.

[WhiteTiger]

Check ebay software section. I picked up a copy of turbocad 7 for around $20 just to have a good look at it. Liked it so much I ordered the most current version and haven't touched my old autocad 12 since.


Tiger

[MIKE JEFFERS]

mark
have a look on the sherline site there's an excellent downloadable intro to cnc
programming
try the free programms ace converter/deskengrave/cnc simulator
dunno about free cad but autocad lite is cheap and good.
mike

[saturnnights]

Thanks for all of the tips, guys... I have been looking into a local class for CNC and would really enjoy that, I think...

Mark