Hi All
It is actually quite daunting to post stuff on a site like this that is full of experts who know so much compared to people like me who are new to it all and know so little. Often you do not even know the questions to ask. The last thing you want to do is to look like is a goose but at the end of the day if making a bit of a fool of yourself is the price of doing what you want to do, it is a price I am quite happy to pay.
Several months ago I started a thread to talk about the way forward for a very old bloke who wanted to get his head around CNC and the best way to do it. All I want to do is equip a lathe, or maybe two, with CNC capability.
Long story short. After a very long time including blown up computers and confusion about which boxes I need to tick and which I needed to ignore, I finally got Mach 3 to work on my lathe and was about to purchase a license. I was trying to work out whether it would be necessary to spend more money to buy smart stepping equipment to allow me to use a USB etc etc.
Then I found out about Acorn. The initial feedback I got was pretty negative which was disappointing because I was particularly attracted to the conversational programming Acorn offered which is not a feature of Mach 3.
One of the main criticisms I read about Acorn was a lack of support. The more I looked into it the more convinced I became that the accusation of a lack of support did not make sense because there were literally heaps of videos available.
So I decided that rather than purchasing a licence for Mach 3 I would buy Acorn.
After a relatively short time, and with incredible support from Marty, today I got it to jog for the first time and will now begin finalizing the installation process. It was a milestone for an old bloke who came to this stuff far too late in life and without the support I have had from Marty and others I would not have been able to do it. At this point I am using the free software but once I get my head around it (and when/if the Australian/US dollar exchange rate becomes a bit more reasonable) I will buy the pro version.
So my conclusion is that if you are a newbie who would like to venture into CNC I would recommend Acorn without hesitation. The support you get is second to none and you are never left to feel stupid because you have failed to grasp something immediately.
Woodie
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