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Having invested in a small (Heiz) machine recently, I have managed to learn to 2D cutting okay. Now I'm starting to carve archtops and want to know which affordable software to use for generating the cutting paths. I have tried both Deskproto and Meshcam but their affordable software carves well but does not actually cut out the outer shape (would have to do that with a bandsaw). I have just written to Vetric "Cut3d" to ask about their offering.

What do you guys recommend?

A lot of the really cheap stuff isn't going to be able to do both 2D and 3D stuff in the same package. However, if you've already got 2D CAM software, there's nothing to stop you from doing the carving in one package and the 2D stuff in another.

I use VisualMill pro for 90% of my stuff but Vectric's Vcarve Pro is so good at inlay that I'll often do the 3D stuff in VM and then the inlay in Vcarve in the same part.

Mecsoft makes something called FreeMill which is a very very basic raster type 3D program that is...free. You could play around a bit with that. It also won't do any profile cuts unfortunately.

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Why VM Pro instead of VM Basic Andy?

There's a few reasons but the biggest is that VM pro will allow multiple machine setups in the same part. I do a lot of multi sided parts and this is borderline essential for doing so. You can still do this with VM basic but you have to make a whole new program to do so and go through a lot of additional export and import steps to get the same result.

Looking through the comparison sheet, for 2.5D VM STD is quite complete. For 3D there's several additional strategies that I use regularly - Projection Pocketing, 3D offset profiling and Pocketing, Pencil Tracing. I do have a 4th axis laying around but I haven't set it up yet so that was a consideration. Most of the really important differences are found in the "Other features" section - Holder collision detection, Toolpath instancing, Multiple Setups (as I mentioned before, this is a biggie), Fixture Offset programming I use with the vast majority of parts I make.

I was also lucky enough to find someone who was selling an older version of what would be "EXP" now so that lopped about $1k off the price after all the upgrades and so forth which made it an easier pill to swallow.

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

I don't know what CAD program you're using but if you are considering rhino there is a plug-in called mad cam. This allows you to perform 2-D and 3-D machine. But the great thing is you don't need to leave the program. I am no expert like Andy but I am getting the hang of it.


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Ken

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Ken

Murray, I was a cnc programer until I came down with MS. I worked with Unigraphics, a $25,000 program, I was spoiled. I've been looking for a cheap cam program just to play with, haven't found anything really good but I'm coming off probably the best cam package in the world. I did look at the free cam and it didn't look to bad, there is suppose to be a lot of improvements in v15. As far as cutting the outside of the part, try making pockets leaving .050 to .100 tabs between them, I did that on some plastic lenses I made. Any one using a 4th axis if your software treats it as live axis set your Y and Z at the center of rotation. This will eliminate steps when you rotate and cut from another vector. A lot of people thought my parts were molded at first glance, Had to look hard to see the tool marks. Free cam also has tutorials on line. I'm not sure how much your willing to spend, Bobcad is relatively cheap but haven't heard much good about it and Mastercam is the start of real full blown cam. search the internet most programs have trial software were the post is disabled. My son was given Benchrouter at a class he took he liked it but I never got around to try it.

For what it's worth, I second Rhino3d + madcam. Carving arch top plates is exactly what I use it for. Of course, cheap is relative. It is WAY cheaper than Solidworks +Mastercam.

Like any CAD program, there is a learning curve. That being said, now that I have the hang of it i was able to generate a pretty close copy of the Benedetto plate from his plans and do a run of 20 for a class, turn around and create my own top and do a run of 5, create a 1/8 violin top, and a carved mandolin top all in the fall semester of last year as a part time volunteer/student.

Lutherie is a passion, not a job for me. I am dogged and patient. I taught myself the software by doing, doing again, and re-doing. It worked. I intended to use the Cnc machine to "rough" carve the plates, but they were pretty close to done right off the machine. I did a small amount of recurve carving by hand and was pretty satisfied with the tone.

I don't know if there is some better software out there, but I can certainly attest to Rhino+madcam having all the features one would need to create carved instrument plates.

This is a huge bonus of plugins. The VisualMill that I use is a plug in to SolidWorks as well and it would be a huge PITA to have to be constantly re-importing and re-identifying regions every time you update a part.

Back to the original question though, price is of course relative. Rhino + Madcam or Rhino + Rhinocam is slightly less than half the price of SolidWorks alone but, it's still over $2k. Budget is a pretty important thing to know when responding to these sorts of questions.

If the budget is hundreds instead of thousands, Vectric Cut 2D + Freemill will get the job done for $150. It will be with two separate G-code programs but so what. This is not considering the cost of any CAD software to draw the part in the first place but there are a lot of low cost options for that as well. One could probably find free models of plates online as well.

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

Really beautiful guitars Murray !

Lots of good suggestions. If you already bought meshcam, sheetcam is a commonly used 2.5d package used along with it. Vectric too.

I've give you another if you are a bit adventurous, there is Autodesk Fusion360 which is a cloud based parametric 3d modeler that also includes CAM functionality from the very powerful HSMWorks (originally a Solidworks CAM add-in). It runs on PC and MAC. Requires broadband for the cloud access but the application runs on your computer and uses the cloud for storage and collaboration etc. You can upload models in a variety of formats including Rhino, and Solidworks and the files get converted to Fusion in the cloud. I have uploaded models and just run CAM toolpaths on them without modeling. It is evolving rapidly and is way beyond a playtoy, but I'm not ditching my other tools.

http://fusion360.autodesk.com/about

It is subscription (fee) based but FREE to a variety of users including startups and businesses < $100k/yr revenue. Autodesk has never been philanthropic to their customer base but they are obviously trying to gain traction with this.