Roger, greetings >> rogerb wrote: >> >>> Could be a little of topic but I'm looking at getting a mini >>>mill for the shop and would like to go from drawing to tools. I run >>>linux on my computer and have win 2000 running under vmware.I have used >>>a few different softwre packages and they seem to suck (turbocad >>>acad,varicad,qcad).I want to use the mini mill to cut patterns so 2d >>>is the easiest to work with for me. Any suggestions are appreciated.
Let us assume we want to keep costs down so OneCNC etc. are out. I think this means you need to choose decent CAD and then CAM: (a) I am afraid, professionally, I use Solidworks to model the whole part and then make a drawing of the view corresponding to the 2.5D milling at one setting on the machine. I export this as a DXF. The design intent in the parametric nature of the original model is invaluable in design iterations. The drawing side of Turbocad offers some parametric features too. TurboCADCAM integrates a 2.5D CAM package quite elegantly but it is not robust and crashes really annoy me. The secret of success drawing with Turbo, IMHO, is customizing the toolbars to suit your worflow. It has so many bars with many flyouts that it is hard to use. Customized for 2D engineering drawing it is fine. The problem is you have to learn it before you customize :=) (b) Having got a DXF and this must be clean (i.e. not containing duplicate lines, little gaps in paths etc. - and coming from the solid more or less ensures this) my 2.5D CAM tool is SheetCam (www.sheetcam.com). This is simple but powerful. It will go round a path with inside or outside offsets and leaving holding tabs, cut pocket with islands, drill automatically identifying holes by their diameter and generate code for a reversing tapping head. Above all it is very robust and well supported. Usual disclaimer here for SheetCam although Les Newell is a friend with whom I have worked on various projects. John Prentice ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys-and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
