[hst]

Gentlemens:

I downloaded Alibre Design and have been wading throught the tutorials. I must say that I am pretty impressed. I have zero experience with CAD and the tutorials actually enabled me to make the drawings. Not only that, the whole thing seemed to make sense. Whoda thought it?

I confess to an almost complete ignorance of CAD, CAM and even CNC. I have been an old school tool room machinist for longer than I would care to remember, but never graduated past digital readouts. In preparation for a step into the Brave New World with a Haas tm1, I have been studying G codes and now even playing with CAD. It will be no surprise that I am full of elementary questions. If y'all can stand a few real basic questions, I start with one now...

What is the process of taking a 3d model fromand getting it into a CAM program and out in a format that will hopefully make sense to the Haas?

Thanks for your help.

Glenn

[harley4ever]

Its really simple once you get the basics down. You basically draw your part up in whatever CAD (your case Alibre). For doing 3d, you'll likely need a CAM software as well. You select your machining operations in the CAM, generate your toolpath within. Everything looks ok, post process the g-code for your specific controller. Transfer the code via a cable or cd or whatever is easiest for you. The rest is the machines job to handle.

[hst]

Mr. Harley:

Thank you for your help. It all seems pretty straight forward. I will continue to play with the program and see what happens.

After all, what could possibly go wrong? :drowning:


Glenn