CNC design software

[Mohrenberg]

Anyone know of the "standard" for designing cnc parts. I'm starting with auto cad to see if I can figure it out.

I would like to design a new laser host from scratch, and have it machined.

 

[Fracker]

There isn't really a standard for the design software. As long as your using autocad your fine. I built a cnc router and use vectric 3d that takes a photograph and turns it into gcode. Fact is that every design gets recoded into gcode that the cnc machine can translate. So any type of cad file can be used. The company or whoever does the machining will take your cad file and convert it to gcode for machining. Most use a cam program for the conversion.

You can try this if you just like playing around and to help understand. Plus you can produce your own gcode MecSoft FreeMILL: 3D Milling package. It will import your autocad file and turn it into gcode.

Any design software that can export or save as a dxf dwg or .stl(real popular and widely used) will work. There are a lot of other formats that will work also.

 

[Bionic-Badger]

It's like the "standard" in PCB software: there's lots of software that does PCB layout, but the basic formats can be written by virtually all of them.

My friend uses Solidworks at his work. Expensive software of course. I think some other people here on the forum have modeled their heatsinks using it.

 

[Mohrenberg]

Alright, thanks. I just plan on having something made much more complex than these regular heat sinks, so I'm trying stay away from paint.exe sketches with measurements lol

 

[Mohrenberg]

So far, i'm liking google sketchup the best.

it gives great 3D renderings and it's so much easier to figure out.