Hello all... my first post.....

Hi,

I have been looking to build one of these and after much research
decided to join up here. About myself..

I'm 35 yrs old, an Industrial Electrician/Technician for TRW
Automotive. Married, 2 girls, 10 and 12. Live in East Tenn.

What I am planning on doing is a 3 axis gantry type configuration to
mill wood, plastic, some thin metal or aluminum. I plan to use
Gecko drives, 30V servos, quad encoders. My two biggest obstacles I
foresee is:
1. Which CAM program to use.
2. What type of clamping/holding apparatus for the workpiece.
I probably won't get a CAD program at the moment but probably will
in the future. I have some experience in industrial CNC (i.e.
Fanuc, Allen Bradley, Mazak, ect) so I will probably write the G-
codes manually and run them through a simulator program.
DeskCNC seems suitable for my application. Haven't read too many
complaints on here about it.
Any suggestions on the clamping design would be helpful also.

Thanks in advance,
Brian Trent