Michael

I notice you are able to download a copy of the CAM program FOC, do this and you can compare easily what's available within the program and see if it would suit your use.

Emgee

Did you view the Demo video ? if not that may answer some questions.

Emgee

The one big advantage of having the CAD and CAM in the same program is that if part way through the CAM you find you need to alter the part it should be possible to do that and the CAM file automatically update. If you are exporting/importing from one program to another then you basically have to start again with the newly imported revised part.

A major problem for me is that there is no Linux version of CamBam ! Where as Qcad with the Cam module does support Linux. Having said that I do use Qcad regularly, and I have played with the Cam part but don't actually use it in anger, not having any CNC machines.

Michael – maybe off topic, maybe not?? You decide.

I'm a CamBam Linux user, and a QCAD linux user. Paid the "subscription" for both of them.

I actually do 99% of my CAD on my Linux machine, my Windows partition containing Alibre Atom 3D and Meshcam gets turned on maybe every 6 months or so. I just like Linux, and do share my monitor with an Apple Mac Mini, and poor old Windows comes last. I did download CAMBAM on Windows, so I do know it starts up, but have not actually used it. (nor Meshcam!)

I build to plans; I enjoy making parts; the 3D designing part of my brain gets used for other things other than Model Engineering, so likely my thoughts are different than the norm. I do watch what Jason does; fantastic work.

My current project is finishing up two Southworth 3" pumps; I just QCAD up the parts, CAMBAM them, and transfer the gcode files to my CNC machines in my workshop. I'm building 2 of them, and parts are interchangeable, as one would expect. After that, back on my Martin-Evans "Ivatt", when that's complete, we'll see.

Saying the above, my thoughts are to use Windows 10 more often, but it seems to be always updating when I turn it on, so there goes my evening. My CNC machines all run Linux, we have a couple of Macs and Macbooks and iPads/iPhones, so Windows is definitely the odd thing in our abode.

I did write a few articles in Model Engineer showing what I did with QCAD and CAMBAM when building my Kozo Shay locomotive, if that is of any interest to you.

John.

That's a bit of a limitation, Michael.

The QCAM module appears to be limited to profile cuts, which can have a wide range of facilities within them, but I doubt would be enough once you become a capable CNC'er.

At the moment, the only Apple compatible CAM I can think of with a reasonable price/performance ratio would be Deskproto. Although it is primarily designed as a 3D system (Geometry Machining) , it also has enough 2D facilities (Vector Machining) to do useful work.

In essence, if you could find a Windows machine that you'd be happy using, then your choice would expand greatly.

Martin.

I can't answer your question Michael as I use just QCAD myself but I am interested in the discussion.

FWIW I use dxf2gcode to do G Code generation. It is fairly basic but helped by some careful layer naming (tool diameter etc) it has got me up and running. It's OK for profiling and has recently had pocket milling added but probably falls a long way short of some other CAM options. All of my stuff is on Windoze but the web page says it works on Linux and Mac too.