Spalted Walt wrote in
:


Probably the most popular starter 'size" CNC for the hobbyist is the
6040:

http://ebay.to/2m1xMFo

I believe _most_ 6040's will rout/engrave both wood and thin metal.

I helped a friend setup one a few years ago. We used an old PC with a
parallel port (LPT) running Windows XP, installed Mach3 software from
he
http://www.machsupport.com/
http://www.machsupport.com/software/mach3/
http://www.machsupport.com/licensing/

He quickly got frustrated trying to learn G-code and his CNC has been
collecting dust in is shop ever since. ;-)


G1 X3Y0
G1 X4
G1 X3Y2
G1 Y0

G-code? What's that? ;-)

Your friend might be interested in software like CamBam. It does a fine
job of abstracting away the G-code, so you draw your objects then tell
CamBam what machining operations to do and it spits out the relavent G-
code.

I only know enough G-code to move the machine in straight lines and to
use "canned" drilling cycles. It's handy when you're drilling a bunch of
repetitive holes. I recognize G3 and IJK, just don't know what it's
doing. The CAM software abstracts all that away. It's probably just as
fast for me to draw the curve in CAM and convert that to G-code as it is
for me to look up the docs and figure out how to express that curve
mathematically so the machine can handle it.

Puckdropper
--
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