Hi all,

I just bought a refurbished CNC lathe and it's already set up for Mach3. The issue I'm having is simply one of learning. I need CAD/CAM designed for 12 year olds but I think even they know more than me. Looking at programs like solidworks 2d just makes my eyes glaze over. Having said that, here is my question...

Denford make a Cad/cam called "QuickTurn 2d Design" and I have tried the demo which is so simple. It's the only program so far of all the programs I have tried that I can actually design something quickly and very easily. The problem is it seems there is some controversy as to whether the CAM part of it works very well with Mach3 and they do not allow a trial of saving Gcode.

The price is £168 +vat which is not bad for such a nice (simple) program compared to others I have seen, but if the CAM has problems with Mach3 then it comes down to only using the CAD to design and export a file to a CAM such as Lazycam.

Maybe the QuickTurn CAM will work with Mach3, but if not and my only option is to use Quickturn for the CAD, then does anyone have suggestions (nice ones hopefully) as to what other less-expensive programs there might be that could be set up to mimic the CAD side of QuickTurn? The point is simplicity and Quickturn is very simple with the resulting design drawings being technical enough for the type of parts I wish to produce. Just enter two dimensions it makes the bar shape. Draw some lines in the bar shape and you have the part plus it shows you the concept in 3D. I think this is so simple that there must be a way to set this up in other cad programs or even the solidworks 2d that I have. Don't know if this is a trial of 2d solidworks or not, but it's free right now. I don't mind spending some money, but if I can get something like QuickTurn CAD cheaper then great.

Any ideas on this would be appreciated.

Cheers
Rob