To expand a bit on what Ray said: The 2.5 D drawing is free. If you then want 2.5D CAM that is one price. You can upgrade to wireframe with cam and then to solids with cam at increasing prices.
The learning curve can be pretty steep but it will do (at the most expensive level) anything you are smart enough to draw. That is where I fall down. People use it to do things like extrusion screws for making plastic parts. Not exactly a simple application. ;-) The top of the Spencer breechblock we milled at fest a couple of years ago was done with Synergy but I had lots of help. http:// imagebin.ca/view/K6PFhT6.html HTH Dave p.s. I does have a way to mill letters. On Feb 15, 2008, at 2:39 PM, Ray Henry wrote: > > Gene > > You might consider Synergy from Weber systems. It's not free after 30 > days and it does not run like a drawing program but it will do solid > modeling or 3d or 2.5d. It really is intended to be a manufacturing > cad/cam system. > > I don't own stock in Weber but I know all the really great folk there. > There is a deb that will run on the EMC Ubuntu CD. And a generic EMC > post. > > Rayh > > > > > On Fri, 2008-02-15 at 16:54 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: >> Greetings; >> >> Giving up on the freebie qcad cuz its pure 2d, I looked around >> with google for >> something that supposedly could do 3d, and found brlcad. >> >> I just unpacked the 70 some megabyte version 7.10.4 prebuilt >> x86-32 tarball & >> moved its base directory to someplace I can add to the $PATH, and >> ran it. >> Pretty primitive interface cuz its universal. Possibly prettyable >> if I tell >> it where x lives. >> >> However it apparently has its own file format, called a .g format. >> Or .gif, .jpeg and no doubt one or two other formats. Looking at >> a .g file, >> it appears to be a text format, but $00 filled into std sized data >> blocks. >> >> Has anyone ever used it for parts design? And if so, how did you >> convert .g >> stuff to gcode? >> >> Or am I barking up yet another wrong tree with no raccoons or >> bears in it? >> > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > --- > 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
