[gnagel00]

Hello all, my names Gabe and i'm a senior mechanical engineering student at the University of Arkansas. For my senior project my team and i decided we wanted to design and build a 4 axis CNC from scratch. We are currently in the design phase and tossing around ideas about controllers and softwares. The only software that any of us have experience with is MACH 3 and would kind of like to go the CAM direction instead of using g-code, but since this project is self funded and those software suites are REALLY expensive, we were wondering what would be a good software for us to use? were mainly going to be using this cnc as a standard 3 axis cnc but i will utilize the 4th axis to make some recurve bow risers from wood laminations, and maybe some pool cues as well. what do you guys suggest for a 4 axis software and why? thanks in advance everyone!

Gabe

[awerby]

Since you're a student, you can get a really good deal on DeskProto, which supports the 4th axis in several modes. It will analyze your mesh and write G-code that Mach3 can execute.