Looking for someone who knows how to use Auto-CAD for CNC'ing some things

Hello,

I’m looking for someone who knows how to use Auto CAD to create the specific items needed to CNC which I could take to any CNC shop (or if you have one yourself you could machine it) which would allow them to get started right away, and not have it necessary for them to create their own designs ($$$) , but rather just to be able to give them the files needed for them to run the CNC machine to make the parts I need.

I’m willing to pay anyone who can help me, but once I have these built I am probably going to release them open source so that anyone can also create my idea, thus saving everyone money, so hopefully it won’t cost too much…

Please feel free to contact me anytime, I’d like to get started as soon as possible!

Best,

Uriah Giroux

Why Auto CAD? You can create your design in any CAD software. It doesn’t matter what CAD it is because shop will have to use CAM software or write program in g-code. Writing program for CNC and making a fixture are the things that can take a lot of hours and that’s why single parts cost that much. In the end it all depends what design you have so I can take a look at it as I have a access to CNC and I know how to use Solidworks. Send me a PM.

My father has a lot of experience with CAD and also has professional CNC machine :wink: If you interesting hit me up in the private message with details :wink:

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Whoops meant to PM that, lol…

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I am interested to see what comes of this. Good luck

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Every CAM is different. Every CAM has a different tooling setup.

The closest your gonna get is a 3D STEP file. The shop will still have to make the CAM paths for THEIR machine.

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ok, what if I was able to find out what program they use? could someone be able to write the file if they have the same software? or is a 3D step file the closest I can get?

Still doesn’t matter, even if you have the same program they use.

You will need to have all of thier tooling imported to your CAM so that you can generate the code with thier tooling.

It’s highly doubtful the shop will share thier tooling setup files with you. As well you also don’t know which tooling is best for the job in their tooling arsenal.

The closest you’re going to get is a STEP file, unless you build your own CNC and go through setting up the CAM for the job yourself…

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Are you sure they will run your gcodes? I work as an cnc operator and known for a fact that 99% of all the shops here where I live want to make their own program to avoid crashes etc. And as @Deckoz said you need their tooling setup.

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Ok well I guess I’ll guess I’ll just bring in what I want replicated and built and that’ll be the easiest way.

Why not doing it yourself? Get Inventor, F360 or any “free/student version” CAD program and start designing. It doesn’t take that long to get into it, especially with the help of hundreds of YT tutorials. If you planning to fabricate some prototypes there are a couple of sites out there which generate you an instant quote (e.g. 3Dhubs or Xometry).

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Thanks that’s a great idea!

I have a vertical machine center in my shop. As many have mentioned above I would not take a Gcode file from anyone else. It just doesn’t work that way.

When I do CAM work I need to know my machine and I need to know my tool library and positions in the tool changer and so on. To make tools last longer I also have my preferred feed/speed setting for each tool/task and many other adjustments.

I can help you out with pointers on how to do stuff and in general if you want stuff you design milled it’s smart to do the cam yourself just to see how it can be machines and if there is parts of the design that make it harder then it need to be to mill it.

Depending on what you want to achieve I can maybe help out with design/cam/milling. Can’t do 4-5axis stuff and heavy surface work tho :slight_smile:

you have anything on paper just to see what you have in mind?

I can make you any cad file you like for free. But you’d have to let who ever uses it make the gcode. Unless you need it made of Kevlar, Nomex, Fiberglas or carbonfiber honeycombs then we can talk :smiley: J.K. I doubt this is of that scale.

did anything come out of this. im just starting a build and have a cnc to use.