Excellent results can come from a small CNC router, but dont forget the software CNC tools, whatever their flavor, can greatly enhance your making. Software Advice for Anyone Thinking About a CNC Router. Excellent results can come from a small CNC router, but dont forget the software CNC tools, whatever their flavor, can greatly enhance your making or DIY ability. My current tool of choice is a CNC router. Being familiar with a manual milling machine, the concept seemed similar, and the price of these is quite reasonable when compared to some other tools. As described in this post, my machine is a Zen Toolworks model, but there are certainly other options to visit like this Probotix V9. Install Windows Ce On Beagleboard Google' title='Install Windows Ce On Beagleboard Google' />Although any number of CNC router models look great in videos and pictures, rest assured that even the best machines require some patience to get one running satisfactorily. Setting up the machine can be a challenge, as well as figuring out what your machine is capable of, but one thing that might slip peoples minds is the software involved. Read on to find out all you need to know the basics of what goes on behind the scenes to magically produce interesting parts. With a CNC router run by a computer as opposed to a dedicated controller, you have three parts in your tool chain Computer aided design CAD, computer aided manufacturing CAM, and a machine controller package. Broken Elevator Sims 3. There are free and paid versions of each of these. Design Your Part. Design courtesy of ESTLcam and my idea to shrink the knife block to make a warrior dart holder. The first step is to draw your part. To generate my part drawings, Ive experimented with Inkscape, a vector graphics editor, and Draftsight, which is more or less free Auto. CAD. Inkscape is a really cool program for generating more artistic pieces, like this random tree that I cut a while ago. If you want to do something more dimensionally driven, my preferred tool is Draftsight. Im very familiar with Auto. CAD, and its available for Linux, Mac and Windows. If you want to get into 3. D design, Sketchup seems to be more or less the standard for casual makershackersetc. Perhaps Ive been spoiled or brainwashed by quite a few years of working with ProE, and Solidworks to a much smaller extent, because I found Sketchup frustrating. I find ProE now Creo frustrating as well at times, but Im paid for that frustration. Regardless of what style or design program you choose, if youre not familiar with the format, plan to spend a decent amount of time figuring out how to generate your parts. Generate Gcode. Meshcam screen per my review. G Code, unlike what some mid 9. General Code, and is what directly controls a CNC machine. Registered Projects. Explore the everexpanding list of registered projects to stir your own project ideas. Whether youre new to Beagle or an experienced Beagle. Google Groups allows you to create and participate in online forums and emailbased groups with a rich experience for community conversations. A. A B Design A Basses AC Dayton A class AData Technology A E AE Television Networks Lifetime TV A M Supplies Apollo AMark A. N. D. You can write G Code by hand, and for very simple circles or lines, this might be practical. For most circumstances, however, G Code is much easier to produce using a CAM program to translate your CAD model into this format. Ive tried out several packages, and all have their advantages and disadvantages Gcodetools for Inkscape Free, great for art generated on Inkscape. Somewhat limited in capability, and the documentation may take a little time to figure out. ESTLCam Inexpensive at 3. More of a 2. D environment, and you can draw your parts on this program if you like. CAMBam Reasonably priced at 1. I primarily use this CAM program. Mesh. CAM Really excellent looking user interface, and it has some neat features. Along with this polish, it is more expensive than some at 2. Its geared more toward 3. D users, so it wasnt a great fit for my Draftsight centric CAD style. Custom CAM routine If youre a programmer or pretend to be, its possible that you could write your own Gcode generating script. Ive linked to a post on my pixel machining Python routine if youd like to see an example. Along with actually learning the software, youll need to consider what kind of speed your machine can actually handle, and what to do so you dont crash your machine. Your CAM program is where you set up your feeds, speeds, depth of cut, and other parameters. Control Your Router. Mach. 3 to control your router. Once your CAM program spits out possibly several thousand lines of G Code, your machine control software is what gets everything moving. I use Mach. 3, which seems to be a common program for hobby machine control. Like everything else, it has a learning curve, but overall Im quite happy with how it performs. One weakness I ran into with this and that is probably true of other programs is that you need an actual parallel port for it to work properly not a USB parallel adapter, and its not supposed to be run on a notebook because of possible power management issues. Im sure there are workarounds, but in the interest of saving time, it might be a good idea to just dust off or purchase an old computer to run it on. It will run comfortably on slightly antiquated machines, so for 1. Another option would be Linux. CNC. When I started leaning CNC, I was almost entirely unfamiliar with Linux. The challenge of leaning a new OS along with a new router seemed like too steep of a learning curve, so I havent tried this option. As I use Ubuntu quite a bit now, I might take a different track today. If you have worked extensively with Linux. CNC please share you experiences by leaving a comment below. To wrap things up, heres two CNC videos that Ive made. The first is me engraving a Tiger Paw, whereas the second video is a tutorial I did on how to engrave a logo using Inkscape. A CNC machine is a great addition to any shop, but as I hope Ive pointed out here, not without its challenges Please note that separate from this post, I have received special pricing andor samples in order to try out products from the companies representative of Zen Toolworks, Mach. ESTLcam, and Mesh. CAM. Jeremy Cook is a Mechanical Engineer with a degree from Clemson University, and works in manufacturing and process automation. Additionally, Jeremy is an avid maker and former Hackaday staff writer. When hes not at work or in the garage, you can find him on Twitter Jeremy. SCook, his projects blog JCo. Pro. net, or on his photography related blog DIYTripods.