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Hobbie Cad/CNC software recommendations

I'm going to be building a simple and small cnc machine based off the design located at

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It looks fairly easy and cheap and I've been wanting to play with CNC for a long time now. My question is can anyone recommend software to use to create the solid models I'll need to use this. The designer uses Kcam to interface with the unit itself and I'm hoping that I can use LinuxCNC which is free but I'm not sure what I need to make the models to start with.

One of my goals for this is to use it to create pinewood derby cars with my kids. We've done the cars a couple of years now and what normally happens is that the kids come up with a design idea, Dad winds up cutting it out and then they sand and finish them. I'm thinking that I can get them to do the entire thing in software and let the CNC machine mill out the basic shape that they can finish.

I figure once we get over the learning curve of the software then banging out a car to test a design with will be a piece of cake, but what software to start with?? For the sake of simplicity consider money no object so anything from open source up to industrial packages are open to consideration.

Later on I plan on more complex items but right now I think simple is what I'm going to shoot for so if you want to recommend a simple one and then one for the really complex stuff be my guest. I'm not sure where this will take me but getting the learning curve of a 3d cad program behind be will get me much closer.

Thanks

Bill

Reply to
Bill
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Reply to
Pete C.

Alibre Express is free and is good enough at parametric 3D-CAD to get you started. The company offers expanded feature sets in their retail versions, which range from around $600 to $2k. Rhino is another product that bears looking at.

Mike

Reply to
Mike Henry

"Bill" wrote: Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2007 10:38 AM Subject: Hobbie Cad/CNC software recommendations

[That machine is simple and (very) small, but it's also going to be pretty weak. It might be able to cut foam parts; I doubt it would save much time in routing shapes in wood, although it might do some surface carving. Its main function would be as a learning project; once you've built that, you'll have the confidence to do it again on a larger scale.]
[If you want free software, take a look at MOI - it's currently available as a free beta program, and it's pretty easy to use. Blender might be another option, if you're going the Linux route:
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[If money's no object, then there are lots of options. Inovate from IronCAD is a good choice for industrial-design applications; it's a parametric 3d modeling program with a lot of nice features. For more organic modeling tasks, my favorite is Freeform from Sensable Technologies - it gives you force-feedback to a stylus device, so working on a virtual part becomes a lot like modeling in clay with real tools.]
[If you want to start simple, Google's Sketch-up might be something to try:
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Andrew Werby

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Reply to
Andrew Werby

I *think* that Bill meant AOI (rather than MOI.) AOI stands for "Art of Illusion" see URL below. If it's something else, would you please post a URL so we can check it out?

Larry

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Home - Art of Illusion Art of Illusion is a 3D-modeller, renderer and raytracer. It is written in Java and runs on Linux, Solaris, OS X, Windows and probably more.

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ursine

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