Wheres the idiots guide to using cheap chinese CNC 3 axis engravers?

[JohnFreeman]

I took the plunge and got one of these things to do home made printed circuit boards and perhaps engrave other "stuff" as it's made. It's similar to

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-Axis-Mini...760876?hash=item4b0b93772c:g:0BwAAOSwB09YG~88

I'm a decent user of computers and understand how to code even though I've not done it since the stone tablet days . While this thing seems toy like, I've seen it milling copperclad to make PCBs and it looks perfectly seriviceable for the job. It also seems like an almost throw-away vehicle for learning the basics of applying CNC software.

Is there someone knowledgeable to point me towards a dummies guide to how to get from schematics or a board layout, or text needing to be engraved, to g code to hardware?

 

[Short Fuse]

Will it do tattoes

 

[CHRIS_WNC]

I tinker a little with a little micro-CNC as a hobby. I'm not a machinist or programmer, so I use software to do the work for me.

F-Engrave is a simple freeware program for basic text engraving. It comes loaded with several fonts but you can download and add as many as you need. Native fonts on your PC work too.

For converting solid models into G-code, I use a program called MeshCam ($250 license). I don't know G-code and that software lets me output G-code for my machine to make trinkets. You'll need to know feed rates, depth of cut, step-overs, end mill info, and that type of stuff for it to be useful.

Buy some scrap material stock and endmills/bits to practice with. Look at machine specific tutorials, if possible, or other videos on Youtube. NYC CNC is a channel on Youtube that I follow that I picked up some basic info from.

CHRIS