Just spend the money (Vetric)

All, I just wanted to share my perspective on your CAM software for your CNC machine:

Just spend the money. I spent a year (at least), working with free tools for a variety of workflows. By this I mean your vector art products, engraving software (f-engrave), etc. I recently spent the money and bought Vetric V-carve (desktop), and it was absolutely life-changing.

This sounds a bit dramatic. But let me explain.

Using my CNC machine used to be PAINFUL. Cobbling together 2, 3, sometimes 4 different software packages to arrive at some g-code was so hard. Often I failed. Add to this, I was new to using a CNC machine at all, so I constantly was doubting myself, doubting my CNC build (I've got an Openbuilds Lead 1010). Turns out, sometimes it was all of the above causing me difficulties, but the software CAM side was a huge part of the learning curve.

I'm not a sales guy for Vetric. It took me almost two years to buy v-carve desktop, because of the price. Now that I bought it, I have been using my CNC machine every week. Sometimes, I'll go to my shop and fire it up, generate a test piece with v-carve and have some sample made within the hour. It didn't used to be that way. Every time I'd try to make something, I'd have to try and relearn all the various free apps to get to something usable, often stepping on mines that I'd crossed previously.

Last pitch for the v-carve software - the tutorials online are NUMEROUS and EXCELLENT. I can watch a youtube video and have my software up and learn a new thing pretty quickly.

Now I'm generating carvings easily, and editing my art is a breeze. I started doing inlays this week, and within TWO small pieces, I'm reliably creating good looking inlays. I'm actually excited about using my machine again.

To me, your software solution should be a factored cost of your machine. The fact is, without software to generate code, your machine is useless. You can get there with free tools, but it'll hurt, and I guarantee you the premium software will do it better and faster - hence the cost. Just plan for the cost (v-carve is what, $350?) Not insignificant, but when you look at the cost of the machine, the bits, dust collection, practice material (wasted practice material...) etc, it's not ridiculous.

Hope this helps someone out there.

 

I'm going to add a reply to my thread above to clarify something - the Openbuilds software that is free (Openbuilds Control and Openbuilds CAM) were instrumental in helping me get started. They work, and they work great. The Control software is actually what I use everyday still. Most of my post is directed at the CAM side. The Openbuilds CAM software is a great, free way to generate some simple code to try your machine out and get going. It has alot of limitations, which is to be expected for a simple tool. But it is great.

Other free software that I used alot: F-Engrave for v-carving/engraving, Inkscape for vector editing and image editing, Sketchup (still use this for 3D modeling sometimes). Even MS Paint would make this list... basically, use whatever you need to when you need to get a work flow step done. That's the free way!