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regards
I am new to the subject and I am buying my first CNC Router (3 axis). The work that I will do on the Router apart from the usual cuts to create furniture and decorative items will also be the wood carving in which the precision and pitch of the Router are important for the surface finish. What CAM software would advise me for this type of work?
thanks for your help
Do you currently have a preferred CAD ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Luiferpri
If this is a hobby Fusion 360 is available for free and provides a variety of tool path strategies and all the usual fine tuning options. It's CAD + CAM and general purpose, not specialized for wood.
Vectric products are popular with woodworkers. Worth a look if you don't mind spending a bit. I think most Vectric customers use supplied models rather than creating their own, at least for the true 3D stuff.
There's much more out there including open source software but that route generally means more work for the user.
Regards
Thanks for your answer.
When it comes to CAD software, I use Solidworks. The machine I am going to buy is: Mega V (XL) from the MillRight company and the idea is that this art is more than a hobby, I want to organize a workshop to generate income.
Warning: woodworking is a hobby for me so I have no paid software. Knowing that take what I say with a large grain of salt.
Solidworks has CAM available and it's top tier is probably very capable when using models created in Solidworks. Creating models of the artistic variety is a skill in itself, these things can also be purchased. If Solidworks is anything like Fusion 360 models in STL format will be a pita.
Vectric isn't 3D modelling software with the exception of Aspire (and I'm not sure if even that does it very well). Looking at customer's posted examples their software still capable of some very nice work but those customers are mostly using provided models. Nothing wrong with going that route imo. I've only used the trial version Vcarve Pro but saw enough to get the gist of it. If I was doing this for cash Vcarve Pro would be part of my tool box.
What''s out there for pro shops ? There's bound to be software in the 10's of thousands of $ with support and maintenance etc but that's for the big shops.
Thanks for your tips. Since my interest is to create my own models, I will have to invest in a CAD / CAM software focused on wood. Anyway I am reviewing Fusion360 to see its features.
I would say try more than one software solution and it may take a lot longer than you think to become proficient at creating pleasing art.Maybe years, so maybe hold off on the machine buying until you have found some software you like and which has a post processor that will produce code for your machine.Otherwise it might add a lot to your cost to commission a custom post processor.