On Sun, 2008-01-20 at 11:58 -0500, tj wrote: > I am a newbie to this as machining is really a hobby. I have an old > Craftsman 6" metal lathe, mill/drill, bench drill press, etc. > > I have now become interested in CNC machining and I am looking at > building my own "router type" table first and progressing to converting > my lathe, etc. > > My first question is I notice that LinuxCNC is NOT a development/drawing > application. So, can someone recommend a good basic app that is cheap, > or even better, free for non-commercial use? > > While I have been a Linux user/developer for many years, embedded > software engineer by profession, I have never played with CAD/CAM with > Linux. > > ANY advice is greatly appreciated. > > tj
There isn't much available if you want to stick with Linux. I have Synergy which is a CAD/CAM program, but much of the time, I'll sketch up a part, fire up the calculator and write the g-code by hand. Or I'll use Synergy to make a 2D drawing of the part, lay out tool paths, record the way points and then write the g-code by hand. Synergy has allot of good features, especially for the price, including 3D solids and CAM, but the user interface is _really_ awkward. Besides with any CAM, I believe it can't generate decent g-code without having really good data on how your particular machine works. At one shop I am familiar with, it seemed that it took about as much time to fix the g-code, as it did to create the drawings, even though the machine data files matched their machines. For the parts they were doing they really had no choice. I suppose one of these days, I will need figure out how to get Synergy to work, but I am not looking forward to it. I like using Q-Cad, but it's a 2D drafting program only. They do have a CAM available. Another thing I have found while using Synergy, is that the fancy 3d graphics and other features can burn up allot of time that could be used for making parts. Others on this list have made macros that can generate g-code for common tasks. I think these can be handy to make writing g-code quicker. -- Kirk Wallace (California, USA http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/ Hardinge HNC lathe, Bridgeport mill conversion, doing XY now, Zubal lathe conversion pending) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
