Small Gallery

[sirkossorg]

Lazycam gets a pretty bad rap, and most of it is probably deserved (I won't attempt to defend Pro). However, it is free with Mach3 and if you are like me and WAY underestimated how much the hardware for your build would cost, you may not have any money left over for GRZ or Vectric products.

Here's the good news. While you're saving up for the above mentioned products, with some basic image editing and the help of a few other free utilities (thank you Danny of CNC4Free), you can use Lazycam to prove out your machine and churn out some interesting (I think) pieces.

Here are some examples of what I did with it early on, for what it's worth. Please forgive the image quality (or lack thereof)

[LouF]

They look great what did you use for the lighting affect?

Lou

[sirkossorg]

Originally Posted by LouF They look great what did you use for the lighting affect? Lou

Thank you, Lou.

Simple LEDs on the edge. Cheap and easy. Bought a bunch of scrap acrylic by the pound from a local plastics place.

[LouF]

Thank you I will have to try that..

Lou

[sirkossorg]

Originally Posted by LouF Thank you I will have to try that.. Lou

Cool. Please post pics. Your machine is pretty much done, right?

[LouF]

Yes it is done I used it to cut some acrylic to make a box to hold my Gecko 540 and power supply. I am drilling for a hold down system like Gerry's should be done in a couple of days.I got a little side tracked on one of my rental properties..
Lou

[riche543]

Nice , they could make good presents for people, could you tell us the depth you engraved into your acrylic , I'm a Lcam user as well , so you wouldn't be able too pocket any of the cuts right. Great work.
Cheers
Riche

[sirkossorg]

Originally Posted by riche543 Nice , they could make good presents for people, could you tell us the depth you engraved into your acrylic , I'm a Lcam user as well , so you wouldn't be able too pocket any of the cuts right. Great work. Cheers Riche

Thanks!

Actually, all of those acrylic pieces were gifts.

I've found that .01 to .02" deep is plenty with a 60 degree v-cutter.

As we all know, pocketing is not supported in the free version of Lazycam. Since I use Inkscape and Hycad for vector conversion, I use their drawing tools to draw in squared or circular spirals for pocket paths. In LC, you can select that section and pick the depth and tool. It's not a perfect solution, but with care can be effective. Is it as simple and accurate as Cut2D? No, but it's free.