RCAD by me

[blackburn mark]

Not commercially available

why ? .... is it machine specific ?
i dont understand the catch, maybe im reading it wrong but you seem to have circumvented a couple of the major ball aches of diy cnc and its not commercially available ? are you looking at developing it ?

[Robin Hewitt]

are you looking at developing it ?

Hi Mark

An excuse to gloat a bit more :naughty: Thanks I wasn't actually expecting any replies :whistling:

I spent a lot of time and money looking for CNC software that was right for me. I couldn't find it so I wrote my own. The chances of this being right for anyone else seems somehow remote.

The AutoCAD end is easy if you know AutoCAD. But who uses AutoCAD these days? I am a bit of a dinosaur. I use a cheap AutoCAD clone called ProgeCAD which has the required AutoCAD structure to make a pukka dxf output.

Here's a pic of the drawing that created the cut file shown above...

Draw each cut level with lines, arcs and circles. Bulges have a positive thickness, pockets have a negative thickness. Bulges inside pockets not a problem, nest as many as you like.

It stitches everything together for you, I've never understood why some software makes you do that manually, it is so easy.

Anything with a zero thickness draws on screen but doesn't cut.

Zero thickness circles create location points, handy for drilling holes on a mill drill.

If you want a block outline to control waste removal you stick it on a seperate layer called "Block". If you don't draw a block it creates one that is a snug fit to the lowest outline.

I wanted it to cut injection tooling so f you put things on a layer called "draft_2.0" you impose a 2 degree draft angle on it.

Rounded sides similarly. It compensate for a ball nose cutter, "Tool 1.5 ball", but that really slows it down because the Z advances to keep the tool overlap constant on the arc circumference. Surface finish is paramount.

I do plan to allow blocks so I can tell it, "Cut fred" and it will go looking for blocks called fred.

best

Robin

[blackburn mark]

I spent a lot of time and money looking for CNC software that was right for me. I couldn't find it so I wrote my own.

smart arse ... makes me feel a little less than clever

But who uses AutoCAD these days?

iv pretty much got my work flow squared away now but im pretty sure in the early stages of trying to crack the CAD to CAM issue i would have twisted your arm for a beta of your RCNC and id have learned AutoCad/ProgeCAD and given the thing a go given how simple you make it sound to use and how expensive and complex software can get

if your making molds with it its obvously working well

im gessing that drawing paths for thread milling might be tedious and the lack of a 4th axis would put some off but im kind of hoping somone who is just starting out and isnt after those functions WILL twist your arm and give it a go

nice one robin xxx
fingers crossed and good luck with it :)