Ramps powered CNC - software advice please?

Hi guys - this is my second "stupid newbie questions" type thread & I apologise again - once more I've been reading & checking out options for a couple of weeks & the vast array of different solutions has my head spinning!

For 3d printing I use tinkercad.com which is crazy simple to use and then Curra to create the gcode - I'm hoping to find a similar combination to create toolpaths for the ramps driven CNC I'm building.

So where I'm getting confused is the CNC guys reliance on Mach3 - which while undoubtedly a brilliant bit of kit has the disadvantages of requiring a dedicated PC for running the machine, and costing money that I'd rather spend on motors & materials. The CNC guys I've spoken to seem unaware of the simpler cheaper & way more advanced alternatives that are so common in the reprap world & unable to offer any helpful advice,.. So I thought I'd try asking the clever ppl here instead.

While most of my needs would be covered by 2.5D, 3-axis solutions, I do have a design in mind that requires 4th axis work (Its a "self-reversing screw" component I need for a project), so in reality I'm looking for something that will take my 3D designs and process them into gcode that the ramps board can use to drive a 4-axis cnc.
I had initially thought this would be simple - but while i'm very computer literate, i'm not a coder & when people start talking about modifying firmware I quickly get lost! I had expected the tried & tested marlin firmware would be perfect,.. its just the software creating the gcode that needs to be able for 4axis CNC work and configured correctly for my machine right???

Do you have any suggestions for software that can do what I need without any major coding skills, and that I might be able to afford on my very small budget?

Yup, learn to write 4 axis code by hand. It's not that bad. A good percentage of the gears and splines I cut at work are all hand coded, with the right tool profile a screw is just as easy to program.
By the way, mach3 does trajectory planning and path generation, some people use it for step timing as well (personally I use a smooth stepper for the step timing). It's not a g code generator outside of the wizzards. There are reasons to use it though, and it is designed to do different things than marlin et all for different reasons. Simply put, cutting tools play different. 4th a is code may be simple, but the job of keeping a cutting tool moving correctly in 4 axis is not so much. Trying to go super cheap is not going to do you any favors. If he job is worth doing farm it out, or accept the cost of doing things right. It will be cheaper than doing things on "the cheap" especially as you have no knowledge of how to cut things in such a machine. No offense intended by the last statement, but you are just starting out.

you only need a PC with parallel port for mach 3 due to assigning all your output to pins and there is marlin and google it you should find it look in the shapeoko forum they have a post in there somewhere as i may consider getting ramps for my shapeoko 2 build

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Check my rubbish blog for my prusa i3

up and running
[3dimetech.blogspot.co.uk]

I'm in a similar boat, except I will be using GRBL on an arduino to control my mill.

MACH 3 is like all the arduino/RAMPS functions being performed on the PC and it simply sends stepper motor controls.

Here is a good list of alternative solutions

http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/Communication_/_Control

and a general overview of software for milling

http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/Software

edit

Forgot to mention MakerCam

http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/MakerCAM

Good luck

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2015 07:10AM by eci22.