Re: CAD software package

Hi Bob,

There are quite a number of CAM packages out there. I have a Denford TRIAC milling machine and looked at a number of packages - some free and some not - and came to the conclusion that in most cases you get what you pay for...
Eventually I bought the Denford QuickCam 2D, which I found very easy to use and was low cost (£200). It is well featured but primarily aimed at the education market . After a while I outgrew its capabilities and I helped translate a French CAM software system called e-NC and have now been appointed the VAR for the UK. In English it is called Easymill. I now use this with my TRIAC. It took me about 2 hours to get the 'feel' of how to use it using the tutorial on the web site (www.easymill.co.uk). There are 2 versions, a hobby version and a commercial version and both of them are functionally identical. The main differences are that the hobby version must be connected to the internet to get tokens as it has a limit on the number of post processing that can be done. There are no limits on post processing, number of tools and number of machines in the commercial version.
There is a useful CAD system built in and offers some parametric designs.

Although Easymill does have a good simulator - I also use A CNC simulator - http://www.cncsimulator.com/ - this is free, you just have to fill it occasionally with 'petrol' to keep it going. I use this as a 'belts and braces' approach to make sure that I am not fooling myself with my design and missing something.

Hope this helps !

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "bnailling@..." <bnailling@...> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> What happens when you try to make money from you hobby. It is no longer a hobby but is now a job! That said, I need to find a CAD Package that will create machine readable files that can be read by a mill for manufacturing purpose. I see from some simple internet searches the are lots of packages available virtually free. So I guess the question is; How does one make sure thier work is useful to the manufacturer? Am I thinking about this properly?
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> Any information will be useful.
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> Regards,
>
> Bob
>