new to the cnc world, but have been lurking for some time.

in the hardwood woodworking industry, and have need for a cnc router. think a 2x3 or 3x4 is enough table for our projects. looking for a decent package in the sub $15 - 20k range. will be designing most of our own builds.

trying to sort all of the features that may matter. and those that make sense for quality and service.

would build one if for myself, but this is for another business so looking for a turn key operation.

one area unknown to me are the software needs. in my understanding you will need one sw package to draw (cad), another to convert that dwg to the machines language (?), and a possible third to convert those commands to the specific drive commands (?). again, I don't know. there seems to be as many software packages out there as there are cnc's.

in a turn key system I would expect to receive all of that software already debugged, and operational. so my question is, which ones are the desirable ones to draw with? ease of operation? smallest/quickest learning curve, etc...?

any help on this OR any recommendations on a machine is greatly appreciated. thanks in advance.