JBurton
Signtologist
I hate enroute, or at least, I don't understand all of the finer points of it, and using it has been so time consuming to learn I constantly find myself going straight back to doing it the hard way. That is, exporting a DXF from corel (with eCut to make a proper DXF) with layers and offsets already, and using a dxf to gcode generator (ncplot, it's great for what it is), then running that through a custom piece of software to add mist and acceleration commands to make gcode files. This leaves plenty of room for errors, ranging from not selecting all of the insides of letters/holes to cut first, using the wrong tools for the needed offsets for finish cuts, missing spindle on commands, just anything that could be mistyped is a potential issue.
So I've been looking for an alternative for quite some time and came across Sheetcam. I downloaded a demo and emailed them to see if they could include a post processor for my particular router, a shopsabre 612 with a mister. (Shopsabre was of the opinion that I should just turn on the mister before starting a program, a messy solution. This is either done by clicking the mist button, or manually adding a line in the g code, again, leaving room for human error. Enroute had the same answer.) So I got an email back from Les after a few hours, turns out he's in the UK. For the past two days he's been modifying and sending me post processors to try out for my cnc, deciphering my scattered thoughts, until finally we got a working post processor that adds mist commands, and it adds acceleration modification parameters! These are useful as f*ck for cutting heavy aluminum gauges, as it reduces deflection when the router makes a corner and allows you to cut finer details that would get shredded without just reducing the feed rate dramatically.
So not only was this fellow was able to add these commands where Sai/Enroute could not, but was promptly responsive and intimately knowledgeable about the software (heck he may be the sole employee), but now I have a simple piece of software to order my cuts, add offsets, and finish cuts, potentially tapping operations, everything I could ask for outside of Corel, and the best part; it cost a one time fee of $132 or so dollars (110 quid, whatever those are). That's like a month of enroute 'pro', or two months of enroute 2d, which this is really in line with, but superior if for nothing else than to add mist commands.
So long story short, anybody looking for some CAM software that doesn't need all of the 3d features of enroute should go check out Sheetcam, and reach out to Les if they do not have a post processor for your machine.
So I've been looking for an alternative for quite some time and came across Sheetcam. I downloaded a demo and emailed them to see if they could include a post processor for my particular router, a shopsabre 612 with a mister. (Shopsabre was of the opinion that I should just turn on the mister before starting a program, a messy solution. This is either done by clicking the mist button, or manually adding a line in the g code, again, leaving room for human error. Enroute had the same answer.) So I got an email back from Les after a few hours, turns out he's in the UK. For the past two days he's been modifying and sending me post processors to try out for my cnc, deciphering my scattered thoughts, until finally we got a working post processor that adds mist commands, and it adds acceleration modification parameters! These are useful as f*ck for cutting heavy aluminum gauges, as it reduces deflection when the router makes a corner and allows you to cut finer details that would get shredded without just reducing the feed rate dramatically.
So not only was this fellow was able to add these commands where Sai/Enroute could not, but was promptly responsive and intimately knowledgeable about the software (heck he may be the sole employee), but now I have a simple piece of software to order my cuts, add offsets, and finish cuts, potentially tapping operations, everything I could ask for outside of Corel, and the best part; it cost a one time fee of $132 or so dollars (110 quid, whatever those are). That's like a month of enroute 'pro', or two months of enroute 2d, which this is really in line with, but superior if for nothing else than to add mist commands.
So long story short, anybody looking for some CAM software that doesn't need all of the 3d features of enroute should go check out Sheetcam, and reach out to Les if they do not have a post processor for your machine.
