Help needed with chossing/using a CAD program for specific purpose

[Rob]

Cheers for the idea eurikain,

I have had sketch-up for a long time and did make some inroads by following tutorials, but eventually gave up trying to figure it out. However, that was a while back when I was interested in trying to learn some CAD just for the fun of it. Now I have a specific purpose for turning so as you mention plug ins, I will revisit sketchup and see what can be done.

For CAM I could try to understand LazyCam which is MACH's version or go with fusion 360 as you suggest. I will try all these solutions in the next week and maybe something will work out cheap. If not, there is the Quickturn option, it's not that expensive relative to paid-for software.

[eurikain]

You are very welcome, it's a pleasure sharing experience :)

Please report here what turns out the best for you !

You will find that SketchUp has helpful plugins such as fillets (probably the most helpful for me really.. that was a huge missing feature compared to other software.

[Rob]

Hi eurikain, well, I tried SketchUp again and looked for plugins to do with turning but it's just to complicated for me which is funny because it is so easy for many people.

HOWEVER...happy days, I also tried the Fussion 360 (until I fell asleep at the computer,lol) and I really like it! I guess the best way to describe Fussion is it "feels right" to navigate the program and the videos definitely show the potential in a way that I can understand. Fussion is way more complicated than the Denford 2D program and I didn't get to try the "turning" option (in fussion) yet as I was too tired, but from the video tutorials on YouTube and from the limited time spent on Fussion itself I can see the potential.

Another point is my desire up to now was just for lathe turning and a simple program like Denfords 2D would be fine for that, but it's very limiting. I have other things to make which will require milling so in the long run it's better to learn something like Fussion if I can.

On another note, a friend called me last night and it transpired that he used to work with a larger Denford CNC lathe and knows Gcode etc... hopefully he will visit soon and give me some tips for the machine. EDIT, he just called and is coming over in an hour, fantastic!

The last thing is you mention the fillets and plugins for Sketchup are an important feature for you and that these options are missing for many other programs. I hope Fussion has the versatility I need and that the CAM side will work with Mach3, we will see.