Thinking of purchasing QCAD/CAM some quetsions

Discussions around the CAM Add-On of QCAD.

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disaldo
Newbie Member
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2023 5:44 pm

Thinking of purchasing QCAD/CAM some quetsions

Post by disaldo » Mon Mar 06, 2023 3:01 pm

Hello

I purchased QCAD back in 2018 to do some small 2D flightsim panels on my CNC, as with a lot of hobbies life takes over and things get put on hold. Now its 2023 I want to get back to making these panels and upgrading my cnc to a larger bed size. My questions are as follows and any help would be gratefully received :)

Are there any restrictions on the size of the piece of work for example Vectric 2D desktop is 600 mm by 600mm
With the CAM aspects is there a manual as there is with the CAD aspects.
Is the program UI windows based ie windows as in UI and not OS , there seems to be very little screen shots around,
I see a lot of comments about writing code does the program do this for you.

Apologies if these seem dumb questions but other alternative software seem to be ridiculously expensive and really bloated for what I am trying to achieve.

Thanks in advance

Stephen

CVH
Premier Member
Posts: 3477
Joined: Wed Sep 27, 2017 4:17 pm

Re: Thinking of purchasing QCAD/CAM some quetsions

Post by CVH » Mon Mar 06, 2023 4:38 pm

disaldo wrote:
Mon Mar 06, 2023 3:01 pm
Are there any restrictions on the size of the piece of work for example Vectric 2D desktop is 600 mm by 600mm
Not that I am aware of. The QCAD/CAM trial version is limited in its export.
disaldo wrote:
Mon Mar 06, 2023 3:01 pm
With the CAM aspects is there a manual as there is with the CAD aspects.
Not that I am aware of. You can get help by posting in this forum.
Mostly, I find QCAD very intuitive, but from time to time there are those things that need a bit more explanation.
Look up some keywords or just post your problem and/or question.
disaldo wrote:
Mon Mar 06, 2023 3:01 pm
Is the program UI windows based ie windows as in UI and not OS
QCAD is especially written to be portable over a range of different OS and versions.
Most obvious from the trial download page: https://www.ribbonsoft.com/en/download
True, 5 example screenshots is not much: https://www.ribbonsoft.com/en/documentation/gallery
disaldo wrote:
Mon Mar 06, 2023 3:01 pm
I see a lot of comments about writing code does the program do this for you.
QCAD has a complete API and supports scripting in ECMAScript and in C++.
What we don't can do with the standard tools can probably be done with a custom script.
Your imagination is there the limit.
And no, QCAD doesn't write any code but QCAD/CAM can export geometry in different ways and that includes G-Code.
There are many flavors of G-code and QCAD/CAM post-processors can be customized.
disaldo wrote:
Mon Mar 06, 2023 3:01 pm
Apologies if these seem dumb questions
There are no dumb questions to my knowledge.

Regards,
CVH

disaldo
Newbie Member
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2023 5:44 pm

Re: Thinking of purchasing QCAD/CAM some quetsions

Post by disaldo » Mon Mar 06, 2023 9:37 pm

CVH. thanks for the response all makes sense.

Regards

Stephen

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