Hi Ettien,
I went the same route as your father. I have most of the stuff under the knee now, still far from a expert. I live in Pretoria, and willing to help your Father. My email is [email protected]


Quote Originally Posted by EtienneK View Post
Hello S.A peeps!

My name is Etienne and I'm from JHB, South Africa. I have quite a few questions to ask and as I dont know many people in the industry i figured this might be a good place to start

My father recently bought a CNC 3-axis Router as an investment and hobby for his retirement, he got someone that helped him set up the machine and also designed some plates that he will be cutting for now. The problem is no one in the family has any experience with CNC milling, so to create new designs will be challenging unless we get better educated. I would love to learn more about it as I realise the potential the machine has, I just dont know where the best place would be to begin.

Ultimately what i'd like to achieve is a workflow that can maybe go from a CAD drawing to G-Code for the Router? I've watched some tutorial videos on that and I'm still not 100% sure what the best workflow would be. I have some SketchUp experience, enough to design simple things, but that's unfortunately where my skill stops.

So my questions ultimately are:
Where would you guys suggest I start as a complete noob with a CNC Router at my disposal?
Would a part-time course be worth it? (if so, where is a good place in JHB/Online?)
Should I study G-Code and CAD in depth before attempting anything else?
Is CAD to G-Code a good workflow to pursue? Which software packages should I be looking into?

Thanks for reading and sorry for all the noob questions, any help/advice/feedback will be appreciated!