Re: Quick and Dirty One-Offs?

>--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "Bill Kichman"
><billkichman@c...> wrote:
> Let me rephrase....I also want to be able to do multple items, but
>am
> starting from ground zero, with an Autocad background and am using
>Mach2 to
> control my machine, and have access to VisualMill. Since Autocad is
> available I probably should learn through that, but it probably
>makes sense
> to get "down and dirty" with g-codes, manually at first, so I
>understand
> them well. This is the reason for the original post, I want to
>learn on a
> sample one-off design and progress to a "production run". Am now
>collecting
> references to get a bit more knowledgeable with g-codes.
> R. William Kichman, P.E.
> Kichman Engineering Associates
> 103 Old Furnace Road
> Cornwall, PA 17016-0643
> tel/fax 717/270-0714

Bill, There are various ways to go as many have said.

One of the better ways is to study simple moves so you can understand
the manual way of doing this.
A quick and dirty method is to sketch your part out on graph paper
and then give all the points, centres and corners two co-ordinates in
X and Y
Then download a free copy of a program called GenGCode from
http://home.inter.net/mthomas/Download.htm
This allows you to do standard part like pocket, hole circles, slots
etc
This will write the G Code for you. Then follow this thru by hand to
see just how the code is developed.
Once you have got the hang of this then try it the opposite way. Draw
your part, write the code by hand then run GenGCode to check your
answers.

Once you have mastered this you can then move on to a CAD/CAM package
knowing that you can read G Code and have the experiance to edit it
if nessesary.

John S.