I have been using this machine I built now for a little while. It is working well and I have purchased Sheetcam to use as my cam program for 2.5D projects. It is a great program and has made it possible for me to do some really cool stuff. I am using Mach3 which is also very nice altho I have been considering having a look at EMC. Currently I am using the Sheetcam tooltable I made to track all of my tools and their individual offsets. I am using the TTS tormach style toolholders and I really like that they can maintain great Zero repeatability. So far all of my programs have been using the tooltable in Sheetcam and I have never done one in Mach3 on the machine. Before that I was just doing my drawings and zeroing every tool on the work until I figured out how to use the tool length offsets. My question then is I am wondering how many of you do your machining setups this way? Do most of you use the cam programs offsets or mach3 and how do you let the cam program know what to do if you use mach3's table? IS there a particular way that they work together? I have been doing well with this but my concerns lie in the fact that I am trying to get into 3d machining techniques and that is beyond the realm of sheetcam so all of my tool length offsets are gonna then be obsolete. Would you say that it is more useful to just use the mach tooltables and import a cam profile that just calls up a tool? I have been curious about this for a little while now and I just thought I would ask all of you guys what you do on your machine?
Also what are you 3D guys using for Cam that is not ridiculously expensive? That is my next adventure.... peace
Pete