[DHay13]

I have a copy of SW 2005/2006 Student Edition that was given to me. What are your thoughts on this. I am very new to CAD/CAM software and haven't even used my CNC yet. What about LazyCam? Which is better? Or do I need both?

[tjb1]

Solidworks is a 3D drawing program, it will work but you wont be touching the capabilities that it has. LazyCAM can only handle 2D drawings so everything will have to be exported out of Solidworks as a 2D drawing which defeats the point of using Solidworks. Dassualt has a free 2D drawing program called Draftsight, very similar to Autocad and it should work just fine for you.

[DHay13]

OK. Thanks for that info. So what about Mastercam X4?

Other than that, what would be the cheapest, easiest way to get up and running with some type of drawing/design software and Mach 3?

[BanduraMaker]

I believe that the Student editions of SW are only good for a year so you might not be able to activate it.

DSS makes a free 2D cad program called Draftsight Free CAD software * for your DWG files: DraftSight - Dassault Systèmes that I've heard is pretty good and it's free (p.s. didn't notice the prior post mentioning this).

There have got to be some free 2.5D CAM packages that work with DXF or DWG files out there, I just haven't searched for them as I purchased my CAM software. Lazycam will probably work too but it's apparently pretty clunky.

PS, Mastercam would be one of the most expensive ways to get going.

[CNC Lurker]

OK. Thanks for that info. So what about Mastercam X4?

Other than that, what would be the cheapest, easiest way to get up and running with some type of drawing/design software and Mach 3?

Do you want the cheapest or the easiest? The easiest would be to use the free Draftsight program to draw or view your design and use the $150 Cut2D program to change the CAD file to CAM to send to Mach 3. Vectric has plenty of tutorials and a great forum community to answer questions so you won't feel on your own trying to figure things out.

Of course, that depends on what you intend to cut because Cut2D is for 2.5D projects.