Search the Community

I am trying to dig deeper into my programming and learn how to set up our router for full 3d work. Currently it is set up as a 3 axis machine, but it was designed with 4 axis equipment present. By my current understanding, I simply have to plug in the other axis and figure out how to program it. I don't know if I have to do anything additional to the controller or not. I have tried looking around for info, but it's confusing. Does anybody have recommendations on a forum where I can learn more about this? I was hoping CADTutor would have a section for it, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Alternatively, I would love to receive links to some tutorials on how to get started. On the other side of things, I've been looking to change software. Does Solidworks offer a demo version? We have an old version of Mastercam, but I'd like to get into something more recent. I'm also looking to test out other programs before buying anything.

dear seniors, i have a few .dxf files which i want to get cnc laser cut. I had gone to a local cnc shop and showed them the files. They said the dimensions are all in inches and that they required the dimensions to be in mm. So they have asked me to get the files converted in mm. As this is my first time running autocad, I would like some help. I have understood a little from a few of the threads which contain things like converting from inches to mm etc. but the problem is that they have not showed a step by step procedure for it. All I could gather from the other threads is as follows (I don't know if its correct): if i have my drawing in inches and want to convert all the dimensions into mm , then i would want to scale the whole drawing up by a factor of 25.4, because 1"= 25.4mm. so for doing this : 1>I type "dimstyle" in the command box/space. 2>a window opens titled "dimension style manager" 3>I press the modify button on the right 4>another window opens in which i goto a tab called "primary units" 5>in the "primary units" tab I goto " measurement scale" and type 25.4 6>click ok 7>in the command box i type "units" 8> and select the INSERTION SCALE to be "millimeters" please tell me Seniors...if this procedure would be correct and that the cnc machine would cut the parts as per the drawings. hope to hear from someone soon.

Guys, can anyone advise me of a good program to use to be able to insert and manipulate text which is laser cutting & cnc routing friendly? A friend mentioned FLEXISIGN, but it seems there are many different software options, which I find confusing. All feedback appreciated