New to CNC woodworking

1551 Views 9 Replies 7 Participants Last post by Tracy13, Apr 16, 2018

Tracy13

Discussion Starter · Apr 9, 2018

Hi. We are new to CNC woodworking. We have recently purchased an SCM Pratix S15B.
We are manufacturing a range of wooden products, like toyboxes & we would like to expand into playhouses, bedroom furniture, garden furniture etc.

We have been doing simple drawings on the maestro software that came with the machine & other than that we have been buying DXFs for anything else.
We seem to have trouble with these as some of them won't open once dowloaded & sometimes even if they do open they are very poor quality.

We would like any help on offer to point us in the right direction.. whether that be where to purchase good quality DXFs or how to open them properly?

Thanks
Tracy

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difalkner

· #2 · Apr 9, 2018

Welcome to the forum, Tracy! Go ahead and complete your profile when you get a minute - first name instead of N/a and your location. This helps us to help you and we like first names.

I use Fusion 360 for my CAD/CAM work, a lot of the folks here use the Vectric line of software, but there may be someone who can assist with the software you're using. For what I do my preference is to draw/design everything and not buy any ready-made files at all, but maybe that's just me...

David

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MT Stringer

· #3 · Apr 9, 2018

Welcome aboard. Who is "We"?

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old55

· #4 · Apr 10, 2018

Welcome to the forum.

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marecat3

· #5 · Apr 10, 2018

welcome to the forum. I use Aspire to do all our drawing.

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MEBCWD

· #6 · Apr 10, 2018

Tracy as you have found not all DXF files (and other vector files) are good ones. Some won't open at all and others are missing vectors, still others have all the vectors but they are all broken up into small pieces. You never know what you are going to get when you down load them. Some times you download the file and find that it will not cut correctly so it won't fit together, then you have to modify everything and hope you did not miss something.

I usually start with the idea and just draw my own vectors and make what changes I want to to the original idea. This way it is your own and you control what fits where and can design for the material you want to use.

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gjackson52

· #7 · Apr 10, 2018

Welcome to the forum !

Gary

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Tracy13

Discussion Starter · #8 · Apr 16, 2018

MT Stringer said:
Welcome aboard. Who is "We"?

Thanks!

We have a few employees but mainly my husband is 'we'

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Tracy13

Discussion Starter · #9 · Apr 16, 2018

Thanks Gary!

gjackson52 said:
Welcome to the forum !

Gary

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Tracy13

Discussion Starter · #10 · Apr 16, 2018

difalkner said:
Welcome to the forum, Tracy! Go ahead and complete your profile when you get a minute - first name instead of N/a and your location. This helps us to help you and we like first names.

I use Fusion 360 for my CAD/CAM work, a lot of the folks here use the Vectric line of software, but there may be someone who can assist with the software you're using. For what I do my preference is to draw/design everything and not buy any ready-made files at all, but maybe that's just me...

David

Thanks David, Ive updated my profile now!

Ok I hope there will be people who can assist me.

We have limited experience in this industry so we went down the route of purchased DXFs to start us off.
We have managed to draw some basic things ourselves but nothing very complex.

Tracy

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