Jewelry specific software is great if you do a lot of Bridal or pretty standard sort of custom designs. I find I can tell a piece of jewelry was designed in CAD and also usually with what software. There isn't anything wrong with that, there's plenty of people making a very good living making lots of pretty "standard" designs and selling them to very happy customers. My interests are just a bit different that's all.
I use Freeform from
www.sensable.com for all my CAD. It ain't cheap, but it's it's fairly intuitive for a guy like me who used to carve everything by hand and the amazing thing is that you can "feel" the piece when you're working on it. I've been using it for over 5 years and it still blows me away. It's head and shoulders above other software for creating original work.
Rhino is a great value.
Matrix,
www.gemvision.com, is Rhino repackaged for the jeweler, it has good features and a strong following.
MOI,
www.moi3d.com, is free, created by a former Rhino developer, it's sort of Rhino lite.
Artcam has a big user group, it's strengths were for years in 2.5D relief type stuff, great for medals, not so good for rings but the later releases have improved that somewhat.
3Design,
www.3designjewel.com, has a good package tailored for the jeweler, I actually prefer it to Matrix. Seemed like similar features but it has true parametric modeling, meaning if you go back to the begining of a design and change something, it'll readjust everything after it.
I use DeskProto for CAM, it's great, really fast toolpath generation and all the features I need.
I have a mostly Minitech mill, 4 axis, with pretty spiffy servo motors and a NSK spindle. Really stout and really accurate. I had a MaxNC years ago, but they're pretty cheesy, I'd look at a Taig or similar for a lower cost mill to start with. If you upgrade, they're easy to sell on ebay.
I used to use Flashcut to drive it but switched to Wincnc, it can drive my mill faster and more accurately.
03-13-2007, 07:01 PM
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