cncutil,
users guide
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CNC LINKS
for cncutil.org
CNCProcess
CNC Problem
CNC Solution
CNC Software
CNC Projects
CNC Machines
Other Link Pages
E Machine Shop -
Provides free 3D cad software which is very easy to learn. I an not say enough
about this software because I was able to within a few hours of downloading
their training videos produce meaningful models that where ready to either
machine or cast. It may not be the most powerful package on the market but I
have now learned quite a few and it definitely provides the shortest time to
productivity curve of any package I have tried. EMachineshop can produce the
parts at a reasonable cost once the part has been drawn as long as you are
willing to wait 30 days or more for delivery they provide both CNC and Casting
capability and their modeling process works closer to how you actually think
when running a CNC machine than any other package we have tried. When learning
make sure you download and work through their video tutorials which will took
me about 2 hours for all of them and then another 3 hours to become reasonably
productive. This software breaks down as parts get complex but it was good
enough to draw most of the parts I needed. This is the only package I have
found so far that can provide near real time quotes on part production.
CADMax Solidmaster-
If you are looking for the ability to model complex 3D parts and require
parametric support in conjunction with independent documentation pages and you
need the package for under $400 then CADMAX is worth considering. They have
some pretty good free training videos but sometimes you have to go through each
video several times to catch the nuances. It takes a while to become productive
in the range of a week of continuous use. My biggest objection is that as a
long time windows user I have some expectations of being able to grab handles
and drag things around which CADMAX does not provide so it can take hours
figuring out the work around. I also found ways to corrupt the drawings which
should not have been possible but I have also corrupted drawings in much more
expensive packages. They have a liberal 30 day full use demo. The only way I
found to feed items in to the CAM software was to use their STL export but this
seems to use rather granular options turns on circles and produced some of the
worst GCode I have seen. Even with it's problems I am seriously considering
this package for our long term documentation even when we use the cncutil.org Gcode
library to produce the Gcode directly. My biggest concern with CADMAX is that
after interacting with the vendor many times it became apparent that it is no
longer one of their primary corporate focuses and so CADMAX is a dead product
that will not receive new features which is really unfortunate because with a
little bit of time and money it would be the clear winner for users like cncutil.org.
CADMAX includes a 2D CAD package as well but it is not cleanly integrated with
3D and as such should be skipped.
Autocad Inventor -
By Autodesk. Their user interface is one of the more intuitive I have ran across
and they have a lot of features built in that others have missed. They seem to be
the default choice for most institutional users who have adequate budgets so it
will be easier to find people who can exchange drawings in their native format
and to hire people who are pre-trained. If your budget can withstand the $6,000 or
so per seat then it would be hard to go wrong with Inventor. One the other hand
if you buy inventor for 4 or 5 people you have spent enough to pay for a 3D
prototyping printer which I think would have more impact on our ability to pursue new
design alternatives. Autodesk is one of the longest established vendors in the
CAD space and as such they have many other products some of which claim to
include 3D features. Only the actual AutoCAD Inventor product met our needs.
Solidworks -
These guys have squared off with AutoCAD for ownership of the medium to high end
market and have gotten some very good reviews. Unfortunately their pricing is
quite high and are out of reach so I did not conduct a through review.
Turbocad -
I really wanted to love this product since it appeared to have everything I
needed including the CAM functionality. It has versions starting at $99 moving
upwards of $1,000 by the time you buy their CAM version and the associated
training videos. I like the basic user interface because the keyboard commands
are similar to those I learned years ago with a Generic cad but their 3D functionality
is at best thrown in and their new parametric functionality just isn't well
integrated so it flat will not work with most 3D functions. Overall if 3D
support is important then DesignCad from the same vendor is a better choice.
The Turbo cad people seem to have become afflicted with the throwing every
feature under the sun in and need to step back and do some real user reviews
for professional users doing real world 3D work.
Designcad -
Having owned about 5 versions of Turbo cad over the years it was an obvious
solution to try Design cad from the same vendor but optimized for 3D. I found
the basics of Design cad to be relatively easy to use but that it seemed to
rapidly break down as complexity went up. It does not provide any support for
additional 2D views and the there was no scripting capability built in. In short
it came very close to being a favoritebut felt more like an art design tool.
Designcad is available from Amazon starting at under $100 but check with the
IMSI for the latest version and plan on buying their training videos. Of all
the packages I tried Design cad consistently produced the best graphics renderings.
It has a reasonable support for 3D Boolean support and their drawings tools are
reasonably easy to come up to speed on. I did not like some of the keyboard shortcuts
which seemed to be non intuitive and their support for assemblies (groups) is
marginal and has stupid limitations that make it difficult to use. For example
if you have an assembly with nested 3D parts you really need the ability to
take a 2D slice view without having to redraw. They also do not provide any 2D
views for documentation required for the patent office. I may well use this
product as documentation aid because of their quality 3D renderings.
Alibre Design -
The Alibre Design series starts at free and moves up from there to the
professional version at around $1400. They include a host of add on
options including SpurtCAM and MecSoft VisualMill Basic but these are either
limited versions or versions that expire and require thousands of dollars to
renew so do not plan on using them except to help familiarize yourself with
their features. The $999 appeared to provide all the features I needed and
their parametric approach was looked like just what we needed. After installing
their package I started going through the online text tutorials and quickly ran
into issues where the tutorials did not match up with the software and that
quickly led to the problem of getting the software into modes which I could
never get out of. I purchased their video training but after 25 hours of
diligently reviewing of these I still could not accomplish as much with this
package as I could with CADMAX or EMachineShop after the first few hours. Their
training videos where the most boring exhaustive review of features I have ever
encountered and are definitely not worth the money. I ultimately ended up
returning this package even though I really wanted to love it but I think that
a new series of task oriented training videos that where free to download could
make this package the top choice of all those we reviewed.
Cad SM -
This package is one of the most intuitive of all those I reviewed. In addition
to the core drawing capability they also provide some of the most sophisticated
3D animation capability I have encountered although it requires a math GURU to
set up formulas that approximate real movement. Their drawing tools are primitive
and they lack some of the common tools that packages like CADMAX and Alibre users
take for granted like adding beveled curves around the perimeter of elements. I
think the Cad SM product has one of the best core engines we have ever encountered
and if it was picked up by somebody like the EMachineshop developers who excel at
intuitive user interfaces that it could be a winning combination. Until that happens
I have to relegate it to the slot promising slot. CadSM does not provide any exchange
with other 3D package such as Step, IGES or STL but even so I suspect that producing
marketing level animations illustrating the major movements of new products would be
as fast with CADSM as any package as and definitely better than manually redrawing
views in Design cad for a movie.
X11 -
Windows based mechanical CAD system ideally suited for engineers. Priced from free
through $99 for professional version. Same vendor also provides GT CAD which
costs over $999. I have not become proficient with this package but it seems to
be pretty powerful. The professional version at $99 includes IGES support,
larger drawings and HPGL support among others
BobCad -
CAD software with powerful built in CAM functionality that includes
direct CNC GCODE generation. This capability to produce GCODE directly leads me
to believe that it will produce higher quality GCode without some of the
problems we encountered with the intermediate conversions from STL and DXF
files. Bobcad seems to get more press than many other solutions but there is a
distinct preference for larger shops to move away from their non standard
approach. It is one of the few CAM packages that make it relatively easy to
graphically plan your tool approaches to avoid clamps and other obstacles.
Their user interface is non standard but appears to be quite useful. If I was
to invest in any other approach Bobcad would be on the top of my list to
packages to invest more time and energy in. Prices seem to start at $494.
Rhinoceros 3D -
NURBS modeling for complex 3 dimensional surface design. I have not had a chance
to become proficient with Rhinoceros but it seems to be used by most of the professional
experts I have encountered and I have yet to meet somebody who doesn't love
the package once they have become experts. Web pricing is $995
IntelliCAD -
It appears to be very compatible with older versions of the AutoCAD user
interface. I didn't complete a full review because the version I downloaded
kept crashing. It seemed to be very similar to the Intellicad product which was
OK but not of leadership calibre unless close adherence to the older AutoCAD
user interface was required.
·
See Also:
o
http://www.freebyte.com/cad/cadcam.htm
- A good list of CAD and CAM software. Most available for free evaluation
periods.
o
http://www.download.com/3D-Modeling-CAD/3150-6677_4-0.html Comprehensive list of all the 3D modeling
software
o
http://www.electronicsoft.net/en-us/dept_7.html
- An extensive set of CAD products many of which look promising but I have not
tried.
o
http://www.cadshare.com/
- Yet another list of CAD and CAM packages.
o
http://www.digitalcad.com/
o
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAD
o
http://www.caddigest.com/
o
http://www.5starshare.com/CAD-subcat0201-sort4.html
- A fair list of CAD products and add on packages including Truespace
Gear which will generate complex Gears.
o
http://www.dancad3d.com/S0900000.HTM#fileslinks
2 and 3D drawing software
downloaded as Shareware.
- http://cartertools.com/
- The Taig Lathe Nick Carter's Taig Lathe and Milling Machine Pages Probably one of the best sites on
the internet with the most comprehensive set of links.