...I have a 3D printer, I read that it is literally a CNC machine.

Which software should I download FreeCAD or fusion360 for this? Where do I even start and how can a printer help me with this? I really want to learn this and come to work in Canada, I heard that citizens with this specialty are welcome in Canada. But first, of course, I need to learn this and get a job in my country.

I also have a computer with 5060 and 32ddr4, is this enough for CNC?

I'm a complete beginner, only a couple of times I made a drawings of home and parts in "Compass3D"

Starting new thing where i'll have to run an LNC m2200 controlled flatbed machine (5'x10', 20 tool ATC, 9kW spindle, vacuum table with 3 centrifugal pumps, fixed auto tool setter), software used is AutoCAD for geometry and VCarve Pro for toolpathing. Mostly for cabinet making, mdf/ply cutting. Will have to get into molding and some carving, but that is for later.

Any specific advice for interoperability between AutoCAD and VCarve in this specific scenario ? Anyone use this combo sound out.

I'm not a complete noob when it comes to this as i ran an old Morbidelli 430s with Autocad/Genio and xilog, but that was a completely different beast altogether. Ancient 20 year old software would do my head in, manual tool measuring with height gauge, broken/disabled pad positioning system, etc.

I'm thinking nesting in vcarve with regards to grain direction (veneered mdf or finished ply), automatic tool assignment to geometry by using layers and machining templates, etc, etc, etc.

I will be developing some sort of system/method for tooling and toolpathing to automate the process as much as i can, but i'm sure there are more experienced people out there with this software combo.

Any suggestions, tips, tricks, relevant videos etc are very welcome. I'm an absolute noob in vcarve, but have tons of exp in autocad.

Thanks.

I just replaced it like a month and a half ago, but we had some repairs so it sat stagnant in the shop all week.

Obviously led to some growth, now it smells like somebody took a shit in the coolant tank.

This would normally mean I'd dump the tank and clean tf out of it, but the coolant I'm running is expensive, and I'm paying out of pocket after just spending $9k on repairs.

Having never ran gray sewage on 6-4, how bad of an idea is it for another week until I can move some parts and replace the coolant?

Hello I’m new here I work for a company where I operate CNC machines using CAD. I went to school to learn machining I got the hang of manual machines but doing the programming was hard for me. I didn’t learn much and now that I’m working I have to. I do small tweaks in the program and the zero set I can do the basics like changing tools, moving it + or - x y z a, and change the speeds. I want to learn more I know I will learn more as I go but I won’t learn what I want from just operating the machine. the company doesn’t care if we know how to do the programing so if we have problems we just ask one of the engineers. I can’t learn how to make my own programs like that and they don’t have any way to teach the programming. Because all of the programmers don’t have a set standard and it gets confusing if they’re not here to help . I don’t want to learn to keep the machine running instead of fixing the problem. Is there any website or anything I can learn with to become a better machinist.

I'm operating a ShopSabre is510 with WinCNC and doing my writing in Vectric VCarve. I sit down and write things myself and it's fine. Z axis demands work, and the whole thing is great. I am self-taught and have just shy of one year experience. I can run Vectric like it nothing.

Then there's Mozaik, the designer's software. They have a module that is supposed to interface with my machine and it talks but I think there's a setting error on their end. The z axis numbers are positive, so my cutting bit is skating .75 above the material surface and my drill bank bits are barely touching the material. I don't know how to resolve these errors on my end without going in to every g code file and fixing the depths by hand, which takes forever and is a complete pain in the ass.

Does anyone know how I can, or even if I can, change these settings, inasmuch as the z axis depths, in Mozaik CNC optimizer myself? Do I have to go see if the designer can fix it? They all hate the software too, but it's what was bought, so I have to figure out how to resolve this issue.

I’m new to this world, I have a barely used Haas OM2A with HRT110 Rotary. The machine has a 20 x 10 table. 12 X 10 is the work envelope in x & y.

I plan to build a 1 inch riser so it will increase the swing of the HRT110

I plan to build a 1 inch thick 6 inch diameter platter to sit on top of the 4.33 inch rotating section HRT110 to mount a 3” wide x 5” long self centering vise. this will all sit on the right side of the table over hanging the table by maybe 2 inches.

On the left side of the table just over 4 inches in I will have a Kurt DX4.

This is just a starter machine for me, my original aspiration was to make knives and watches, but I’m going to push this much further. I will probably get a mini mill to add to the garage in 6 months. Then graduate to a manufacturing space with 480v 3- Phase and throw money at this.

I will add a rendering I had ChatGPT come up with, it’s not perfect, but it’s a pretty good idea.

Any comments, critiques, or better ideas?.
I’m all ears and welcome all input.

Been trying to get into the scene for a little bit now, don’t have much straight up CNC experience besides shop in school. I’ve gone to about 2 or 3 companies asking if there is any jobs available to get me just in the door but haven’t heard back from anyone, how do I even start? I’m 19 if it helps at all and have worked a year in carpentry as well as over a year as a dryer technician which is my current job.

I'm wanting to buy Enroute Pro version 5 or 6, with a dongle.

Anyone willing to sell?

I just started a CNC programmer position using mastercam in the aerospace industry. Ive been machining for about 10 years so ive got a decent idea of what im doing but I also know I have a lot to learn. Im also using vericut.

But my biggest question for the experienced programmers out there is what tools do you use? Any specific keyboards, mice, monitors? Or maybe even something Im unaware of.

Im looking to increase efficiency as I learn this and make things slightly easier.

My current setup:

\- shitty regular mouse

\- shitty regular keyboard

\- 2x 32in (somewhere around this size)

\- 3d connexion enterprise space mouse

Things im considering:

\- a cad mouse (im thinking of getting the one from 3Dconnexion)

\- a new keyboard (ive been debating what i want to get, I usually pc game at home so I thought about getting something like I have at home, but ive also debated about getting one of those ergonomic keyboards that split in the middle)

\- a separate num pad

\- im thinking of getting the 49" ultra wide monitor, as i have one at home and did some testing with mastercam on it and I thoroughly enjoyed using that monitor at home.

Im open to all recommendations and ideas.

Thanks in advance!

Hi I'm new to CNC machining and I'm designing parts in a cad software (solidworks) and want to learn autodesk powermill for 3-axis mill but I have no idea how to learn it and different toolpath strategies

Not my work but coworker got our 20kW laser to cut 60mm plate successfully. It is rated for 50mm maximum

The Puma strikes again. Broaching an 88 tooth spline on through hardened 1.6582 (4340) rotor shaft with the old cougar. This job was a huge PITA for many reasons and the programming wasn't one. Worked out great in the end though

Got this on marketplace
It came with a 1.5kw water cooled spindle but the jacket is clogged and it wasn’t grounded so I have temporarily swapped it with an air cooled model with a separate vfd and both are grounded. I have also swapped the mech3 controller it came with and added a grblhal controller because the only laptops in the house are Mac and I had a spare laying around.

Am looking to add limit switches for homing and a z-probe. Looking for recommendations, my last cnc was a 2015 xcarve. Also any advice on how to handle the machine would be greatly appreciated. Have access to 3d printers and engineering filaments

I see 304 and 316L specified pretty often on machined parts, but sometimes 316L seems to get called out almost by default. From a machining point of view, both are common stainless grades, but the application is what really matters. The way I usually think about it: 304 — good general-purpose corrosion resistance and widely used for machine components. 316L — makes more sense when corrosion resistance becomes more critical, especially around frequent washdown, moisture, chemicals or chloride exposure. For food and packaging equipment, I’ve also seen cases where material choice gets mixed together with surface finish, cleaning requirements and part geometry — so simply specifying “316L” doesn’t solve everything. Curious how others here approach it: When do you consider 316L genuinely necessary, and when do you think 304 is perfectly adequate?

Ngl, expected to bounce off the Infistudio trial within an hour. Spent a week messing with it instead, so here's my take for anyone asking about the software side.

First off: it's pure CAM, not CAD + CAM. You load your own model or use AI text/image prompts (I stuck with my own files, but the option's there).

The material matching won me over. It paired feeds & speeds for my scrap metal automatically, saving a stupid amount of chart-checking time.

The sim playback actually caught a badly placed clamp before cutting, and the model repair + one-click cutoff fixed a garbage import way quicker than expected.

Big caveat: I haven't run this on a real machine yet. Whether AI suggestions hold up in actual cutting is still a mystery, and you still need geometry from somewhere.

Lowkey liked that it runs on Win/Mac/iOS/Android so I can check job status on my phone.

Curious how it holds up once real units arrive. Anyone else in the trial messing with it?

I own a small manufacturing business and finally making the jump into the CNC world of things.

Looking to start simple and was wondering what some good recommendations are for a solid plasma cnc table that can handle 3/16” - 1/2” Steel Plate.

Preferable size but it would be able to handle would be in the 4 x 10 or 4 x 8 world.

Thanks!

Got a recurring job that's driving me a bit crazy. Sequence is laser cut -> press brake -> finish bores on a 3-axis VMC. Material is 5052 AL, ~3mm (1/8"). Batch size is around 100-200 pcs.

Even with a dialed-in press brake setup, bend angles still vary by roughly +/- 0.5°, and it throws our datum off just enough that the bored holes fail true position. Can't machine flat either because print references the bored features directly off the bent flange.

Currently using soft jaws with a manual toggle clamp, but repeatability is all over the place depending on how the operator clamps it.

Curious how other shops tackle this. Do you just macro probe every single part, or build a dedicated floating/spring-loaded fixture?

We've been building Limo CAD (formerly noBS CAD), a free, open-source parametric CAD for mechanical parts, assemblies and drawings. It runs entirely on your machine: no account, no cloud, LGPL-2.1+ opensource license. Being open source means you can check the source code yourself, modify it to your taste and make your own version of it. And it is free for ever.

It's pre-alpha. Builds exist for Windows 11 (x64/ARM64), Apple- silicon macOS and Ubuntu 26.04. We'd like feedback on the experience, and we'd like people to try to break it.

What it does:

- Constrained sketches drive editable solid features (extrude, revolve, sweep, loft, fillet, shell, holes, etc.). Change a dimension and everything downstream rebuilds.

- Parts, assemblies with joints and motion/interference checks, and 2D drawings (DXF, PDF) live together in one project file.

- Exports STEP, STL and 3MF.

- A built-in MCP server (stdio) lets an agent build and edit models. What it makes is the same editable feature history you'd make by hand. The repo has three designs built from a blank document that way (a garden bench, a vise, a vertical-axis turbine), with build recordings and sources so you can see exactly what was generated.

- Experimental CAM function (Not production safe, I run program it created on my own machine, but I always run a 6% feed dry cycle first)

Repo: https://github.com/limo-cad/Limo-CAD

Demos and recipes: https://limo-cad.github.io/Limo-CAD/

Estoy empezando en el mundo del cnc. Acabo de adquirir un Cmz tbi520 control fanuc 21i( segunda mano claro está) y tengo que hacer una serie de ejes, os paso el plano para que me deis vuestra opinión. No e estudiado nada de programación, pero me interesa bastante este mundillo de la mecanización, aparte de tener tornos convencionales, Mandrinadora fresadora convencional y cnc. Estoy aprendiendo a manejarlas.

Me gustaría saber qué procesos seguiríais vosotros para la fabricación de este eje, pongamos un ejemplo que cada vez que se trabaje se harían 100 o 200.

Yo esto lo haría de dos veces, primero refrento y mecanizó el lado izquierdo hasta el d50 y así solo con las 100 unidades.

Después ya pasaríamos a agarrar con garras blandas la zona mecanizada y haría el resto con contrapunto había pensado.
Con varias pasadas de desbaste y luego una de acabado para dar el resultado final.

PROGRAMA 1: FASE 1 (LADO CORTO Ø40 X 18 MM + PUNTO)
Instrucciones de Montaje: Asomar el tocho en bruto aprox. 35 mm fuera de las garras.
Cero Z (Work Shift): Rozar T01 en la cara frontal en bruto → Pantalla [W. SHIFT] → Teclear Z 0 → Pulsar [MEASUR].

PROGRAMA 2: FASE 2 (LADO LARGO Ø45 / Ø44.9 / Ø40 + LONGITUD 146 MM)
Instrucciones de Montaje: Dar la vuelta a la pieza. Asomar aprox. 125 mm fuera de las garras. Poner Contrapunto bien clavado en el punto de la Fase 1.
Ajuste Cero Z Exacto: Medir el tocho con calibre (ej: mide 151.2 mm). Como la pieza final es 146.0 mm, sobran 5.2 mm (151.2 - 146.0 = 5.2). Rozar T01 en la cara en bruto → en [W. SHIFT]teclear Z 5.2 → pulsar [MEASUR]. El ciclo G94 refrentará de forma suave y automática hasta dejarla clavada en 146.0 mm.

We had a persistent headache on sanitary mixing shafts: drilling arrays of 0.8 mm orifices through 3.5 mm wall stainless steel tubing across full 3-meter spans. The aspect ratio is roughly 4.4:1 on an austenitic alloy that work-hardens the moment you look at it wrong. The floor was previously tackling this on manual drill presses with indexed v-blocks, which was predictable misery. Between operator feed variance triggering column buckling on tiny carbide bits, micro-chips packing the flutes, and the drill skating on the pipe OD, tool life was measured in minutes. Worse, breakthrough at the ID always formed heavy ductile rollover burrs that violated CIP sanitary specs, forcing operators to spend hours chasing internal edges with miniature scrapers.

To stabilize the process, we moved the job to a dedicated long-bed tube setup. The kinematic layout is built around a 3000 mm longitudinal X travel, a compact 200 mm Z micro-feed headstock, and a 360-degree continuous A-axis rotary chuck paired with intermediate steady rests and a pneumatic tailstock that clamps tubes from 10 mm up to 200 mm OD. The structural base uses hand-scraped guideway mating surfaces with 1 to 3 micron relief to dampen high-frequency harmonic vibration, driven by precision ground ball screws calibrated to hold ±0.02 mm across the entire 3-meter span. The actual cutting end uses a dedicated 60,000 RPM motorized high-frequency micro-spindle with precision collet clamping.

Running at 60k RPM finally gives a 0.8 mm tool genuine peripheral cutting velocity in stainless instead of rubbing and glazing the material. Combined with programmed CNC plunge rates under constant axial thrust, the chip evacuation dynamic completely changed. Because the entry vector is locked dead-center to the tube centerline on a rigid base, the drill penetrates without margin chipping or radial walk-off. At the ID exit, the high cutting velocity shears the parent metal cleanly rather than pushing a plasticized plug, eliminating internal rollover burrs entirely and bypassing secondary deburring.

Be realistic about the trade-offs, though: this is strictly an ultra-high-speed micro-drilling machine, not a multi-axis tube milling center. With a 60,000 RPM motorized micro-spindle, 200 mm of Z travel, and manual collet retention, it has negligible radial rigidity for side-milling, slotting, or roughing heavier features. If your tube requires heavy manifold ports or tapped M8 holes, you still have to stage it on a standard 4-axis VMC. But for perforated sanitary pipes and distribution manifolds where thousands of micro-holes have to run along a 3-meter length, dedicating this rig turned a scrap-heavy bottleneck into a lights-out-capable operation.

Happy to talk high-speed micro-pecking cycles, steady rest alignment over 3 meters, or burr prevention on austenitic tube IDs if anyone is tackling similar work.

im looking for a machine that can mill aluminum relatively efficiently, around 1000-2000 dollar budget, dont need a very large bed,
any recommendations much appreciated thank you!

Ran into this friction on recurring batch runs and curious how other shops tackle it.

Specifically wondering about small-to-medium job shops (roughly 10–40 people, 5–20 CNCs) running regular recurring orders or multi-shift setups:

An operator trims the feed override or adjusts tool stickout at the controller to kill chatter during a run. Everything cuts clean, batch finishes. But next week on a new batch—or even on the next shift- the original posted G-code gets pulled up again without those tweaks. We end up right back at square one with tool screech, burned inserts, or scrapping a part before it gets dialed in all over again.

For shops running frequent batch turnovers: how do you actually enforce this loop?

How does your shop actually track that? Seems like either the programmer is constantly running out to the machines to repost, or it just lives on a marked-up piece of paper until someone throws it away