Re: Any suggestions for a Control Program ? - thanks!

Thanks for the replies everyone. I will be checking your ideas out.

Right now I am using a P2-400 for design and a P1-200 for the
machining. This is working well. I think you are right in having a
separate machine for design work. This way you can have some
powerful (COREL, AUTOCAD etc.) on your big machine, leaving the
smaller one for the milling.

The smaller machine is running Windows 98 that I have setup with a
menu to boot to command prompt to run CNC Pro and Turbo CNC. I have
CNC Pro working and it works well until the shareware limits kick in.

Steve

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y..., "stevenmanzer" <smanzer@m...> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I have just finished a CNC Router (based on John C Kleinbauer's
> PipeDream) and am considering which CNC Control software to
> purchase. I have looked at CNC Pro, Turbo CNC, and have just
> downloaded MASTER5.
>
> The controller is John's Piker4X step/direction controller for
> steppers.
>
> I realize this is a newbie question...but I was wondering if anyone
> has any preferences one way or the other.
>
> The MASTER5 program seems like it will do more than CNC Pro for
less
> money. It looks like it reads standard files as well as image
> files. I have not connected it to my machine yet to see if it
> actually works as reported. It would be nice to use windows to
> design and then control the router, but I realize there may be a
> performance hit by using windows as the OS.
>
> From what I have seen there are lots of small programs that do a
> specific task well, but you have to flip between programs to obtain
> the task you need. For instance, you can make your design in Corel
> Draw, save as .dxf, read in using KCAM, then output as GCODE, then
> read that with GCODE2000 to change cut depth, or other edits, then
> save as GCODE to CNC Pro...Wow, thats a lot of flipping...anyone
have
> any thoughts?
>
>
> Any advise would be great,
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Steve