It’s not necessarily what we’d recommend for a beginner, but it is free, so there’s no cost to try it. Like Alibre, it’s capable of creating very complicated designs with very high precision, but the user interface is much more complicated, and the learning curve will be much more difficult. FreeCADįreeCAD is a completely free 3D CAD parametric program that’s become increasingly popular as 3D printers have become more popular. Luckily there have been significant improvements in the free options over the past few years as 3D printing, which uses the same CAD program, has taken off.

There are many CAD software packages out there, but unfortunately, most of them are not free. Free CAD softwareĬAD, which stands for Computer-Aided Design, is the CNC software that lets you draw your designs. We’ll limit our listing to software for a CNC router or CNC milling machine and avoid other machine types, like plasma cutters and laser cutters. You may spend more time with the software than your CNC mill, so it’s worth spending a few dollars if the paid software makes CNC machining easier. We’ll cover a few paid products in addition to free options.

CNC control software (Makes your machine follow the g code tool path).

CAM Software (Lets you turn the drawing into a tool path in g code format).

Starting from your design to the g code for your CNC machine, you’re going to need several CNC software applications:

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