I have been trying out Visual Mill 6.0 and it’s pretty intuitive. Here are two screenshots of a 3D design I made using ViaCad 2D/3D software. It took me about 3 days of playing around with it to get to this point.
Yes, infact it comes with a Sherline/ Mach3 Gcode output processor! This is the main reason I wanted to try it out to see if this is the app to get in addtition to a Sherline Mill.
Well, I don’t have a CNC mill and probably will not have one for a long time, but It’s something I do plan do eventually get.
In the mean time, I have a friend that has a 6 axis Haas CNC machine that can cut this part but with his bussy schedule, its hard to fit me in between his other clients. I sent him another design to cut which is basically the same style as the one I already have except that it has 5mm holes in the eye sockets for LED lights, or IR LEDs. He was supposed to have it cut by October, but then got pushed back to thanksgiving, and now, I don’t know when he will get to it. I don’t want to push since He will not charge me for this one. He was going to take my last design and and use it to test out his new software he got for his machine which is why it will be a freebee. He was also going to quote me a price based on how it ran so I can oerder several copies.
As for a video, I doubt he would want to mess with that. I agree, I would love to see a video of it machined as well. The machining is done in steps. He has to cut the bottom first, tap holes, and then mount it on a custom fixture to cut the other sides. It takes some time to complete because you have to stop and refixture the part.
It might be easier and cheaper to make it be cutting the head in half easier acces plus this might let you make a more complex design. Then just bolt it together from the backside. Since its milled on a Haas you would hardly notice the seem mark.
I’m interested in getting one of the heads sometime this year… preferably with holes for sonic rangers. I’d definitely pitch in with a group if it got us all our heads for cheaper.