The ubiquitous best hobby priced CAD program ..

[ETC57]

(03-14-2012, 03:47 PM)Tony Wells Wrote: I'd guess the CAM part is where the money is anyway. If you have a shop, and are commercial, then you should be making money with your CNC machines and can afford to spend the bucks on a full blown CADCAM system. I wouldn't be at all surprised though if there were an open source Linux based CADCAM package. Of course, unless you were already Unix/Linux familiar, it would be a double learning experience. I can tell you that learning a CADCAM package isn't easy, in any case. I have an older copy of MasterCam version 9 I believe), and although I don't have any CNC machinery at this point, I may someday. I've had a little OJT with a couple of really sharp programmers, but it would still be a challenge to pull it off. And I say that after being around CNC since about 1987. I haven't spent a great deal of time running them, but I can, and I have. I have also written a handful of programs. Again, it would be tough for me to jump in and make good parts at a profit. If I were a hobbyist, and had the time and no profit margin to maintain, it would be different. It would probably even be fun then.

I find that spending time and money on projects that do not require an accounting for later is always fun!!

My son in law gave me auto cad 2012 the student version so I could try to wrap my head around it, then my wife got me auto cad for dummies( point taken )
FUN TIMES!!!!

Jerry.