Have you seen the madCAM YouTube channel? There are a lot of videos there.
Hello,
I'm a newbie to CNC, having taken a few classes in Rhino drawing and general CNC operation, and produced a handful of projects at school. I have a small, one man shop building guitars, and I recently sprung for a CNC and MadCam 5 v3 (already have Rhino 5). I may have been overconfident, but I assumed I could whip through a set of ordered, same source MadCam tutorials, break a few bits, ruin some wood, and be up and running. I'm finding that something as simple as scribing reference lines into my spoil board, or cutting a simple sign from vector artwork is stumping me to the point of extreme frustration/despair. I'm hoping I'm not alone, here.
My request is this: Can someone (maybe at MadCam) put together a set of short videos, with audio, aimed at getting newbies over the initial hurdles? I would ideally like to see something like "Part 1: So you got your first CNC machine. Now what?" and then take us through some super simple tasks like Building your tool library, Installing your Post Processor file, Leveling the spoil board, Etching Reference lines/grid and text into the spoil board, Generating simple tool paths (single tool) to test your machine, Making your first sign from type, Cutting wood inlays, etc
About the simplest video I could find currently, is the 2D profiling from curves one, and even following it step by step, I could not get a tool path to run in simulation without getting an OpenGL error message every time. It would be great to see some stuff targeting folks like me who chose MadCam as our first CAM software, and want to get to work. Thanks very much for your help!
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Have you seen the madCAM YouTube channel? There are a lot of videos there.
(Note: The opinions expressed in this post are my own and are not necessarily those of CNCzone and its management)
Hi Dan,
I have. What I'm suggesting is a series of tutorials that have an organized flow and a consistent format, put together by the manufacturer as a basic Quick Start guide for the product.
The existing videos are not presented in any logical order, and coming from multiple sources, there is no agreed upon format. For example, having a tutorial video showing a fast moving process with no audio is as frustrating as it is helpful.
Mind you, I would be happy to purchase this series I'm proposing, although I believe it should be freely available. I also believe the product (MadCam) is a good one, but it's not inexpensive, and it seems like the support is mainly happening here on this forum. I think it's fair, when buying expensive software, to expect the manufacturer website to contain an organized and thorough support section.
I'm not here to vent. I want to help make the transition easier for first time users like me, who just want to get up and running, with minimal delays. Thanks again for all your help!
It makes sense. I've made videos for our sister plants in the US and Mexico, but they are very specific to what we do, using custom commands and toolbars that I can't share. It would need to be done by someone who uses it right out of the box, for more general purposes. I think someone other than Joakim would need to take on this project. He's pretty busy just trying to get the software developed. Keep in mind that madCAM doesn't have the resources that a company like Mecsoft does.
(Note: The opinions expressed in this post are my own and are not necessarily those of CNCzone and its management)
Heard from Joakim, and he is planning to do some more videos in the future. I also found that some of the existing videos by Sven contain a bunch of helpful (basic) info tucked into his explanations of more advanced techniques. It's worth it to watch them all and take notes. Thanks Sven!
Yeah, Sven knows madCAM a lot better than I do!! I wouldn't debate that for a second.
(Note: The opinions expressed in this post are my own and are not necessarily those of CNCzone and its management)