Beginning CAD question

First off I would like to thank everyone that replied to my earlier posts
regarding my Sherline mill conversion to CNC. I have purchased and built
the Camtronics 2A 3-axis drivers and I am in the process of starting to
learn how to make drawings with CAD programs.

I feel that my needs in terms of CAD are very basic, and it is not efficient
for me to learn all aspects of CAD at this point. I have downloaded the
trial version of IntelliCAD-2000 and have been reading the manual. Here is
what I am trying to do, and at this point all of my applications of CNC will
be for only this type of work.

I am making rings (wedding bands) that will have mill cut patterns around
the outside circumference of the piece. The three axes that I will control
are the z-axis for depth of cut, the y-axis which will be connected to a
rotary table (therefore the ring size is taken out of all calculations), and
the x-axis which is the axial position relative to the edges of the ring.
Basically I will "unroll" the pattern that will go onto the ring surface and
draw it in 2-D space as a flat piece where the left and right edges align.

For the Sherline mill with its 20 TPI leadscrews each rotation of the
leadscrew result in a 0.050" linear movement for the x and z axes. And the
rotary table will move 5.0 degrees for each rotation of the handwheel
(stepper motor). Therefore it is an easy scaling to convert from the
unrolled diagram to the circumference of the ring: 360 degrees is equal to
3.600". So if I can make a drawing that starts at y=0 and ends at y=3.600 I
should have the right size for my application.

I would like to draw a picture of a Sine wave that traverses three complete
periods (from 0 to 3.600") with an amplitude of 0.250". This should be easy
if you know how to use the program, but I don't so could somebody tell me
how to do it??? Once I learn how to do this one, I should be able to modify
the process to plot any function I may want.

If you want to see a picture of some of my manual work (VERY TEDIOUS) check
out this link:

http://members.rennlist.com/statmandesigns/Style-W.html


Thanks for any and all help.

Daniel J. Statman, Statman Designs
http://members.rennlist.com/statmandesigns