Does anyone know where I could get a free cnc milling simulator? I am designing a cnc mill right now, and I am trying to decide if I should write the software from scratch or build off of a current program.
english please i dont speek googlehert language
I didn’t post a translation for the specific reason that if you didn’t understand that then you wouldn’t know enough about the topic to help me. I’m curious, do you know what the Anthoptic Principle (spelling?) is?
do you by chance mean the anthropic principle?? But dont bother asking that because we will all be extinct long before you get an answer…
Sorry, typo.
I don’t see how our universe being as it is because we are here to observe it has anything to do with extinctions or teh speed of my answers… Then again, maybe I’m the one who doesn’t get it.
i was referring (badly) to the doomsday principle, which is often related to the anthropic principle.
I don’t know of any low cost or free CNC simulator software. There may be some low cost or free student versions of that type of software available. Your best bet there would be to ask a teacher or professor at a community college or technical school that teaches machining. An engineering school that teaches manufacturing engineering would also be a source.
Cool, thanks. The machinist I’m interning for (read: being taught to use his mill/lathe in exchange for some work around the shop) is rather aversed to CNC. He always says it’s easier to just hand machine the part then it is to try and program it for cnc. I am starting to wonder if this is true, when, after using his bridgeport for about 24 hours over the last 2 weeks, I’ve noticed a backlash of about 10-15 thou on every axis (knee, x, y). It amazes me that either of us have been milling stuff as accurate as we’ve gotten (+/- 3 thou best so far).
Trip: I don’t see how a doomsday prinicple had anything to do with the anthroptic principle. The anthroptic principle (both strong and weak) is a result of not-quite sober physicists trying their hand at philosophy. It’s vaguely related to the copernican method of thought.
the anthropic principle states that (in much simplified terms) that there is not evidence that humans are unique or imporant. this has led some to believe in the doomsday principle, which says that humans will become extinct much sooner than expected, which led to my (bad) joke about waiting for someone to answer your question since people will be extinct very soon.
I’m not aware of any low cost software for CNC either. There’s a reason that these programs are expensive. They tend to be very complex and difficult to write. If you can find a low cost or free student version it likely won’t have much capability and you’ll get frustrated with it fairly quickly. However, don’t let me discourage you. You might find something out there that I’m not aware of. If you do, please post it on this thread. I’d like to know. Good luck.
This seems to be the best out there. I’m gonna try it out soon.
Trip, that is not the anthroptic principle as I understand it. What you describes seems to be an extension of Copernican theory.
Wow, that’s pretty snazzy software for free. Back in my day we simulated CNC programs by hand. 
I did an internship at Boeing where I programmed CNC machines using the language APT (Automatically Programmed Tool). The programming was text based and I worked from engineering drawings on paper. For some reason that makes me feel old. 
Hey, if you want to give me some short online or phone coaching, I’d be really thankful. I have no idea how to translate an autocad drawing into g-code other than hand typing every single coordinate, which isn’t very appealing.