Hello

I'm new to CAD/CAM in general, all of my design work so far has been done on a drawing board. I will be using CAD to design eyeglass frames and possibly some of the tooling needed to produce them. I do have a few questions now and probably several gazillion more later. I am using Ubuntu 12.04  currently and switching to Windows XP or 7 later.

Questions:

1. When is the instruction manual going to be done?? I'm just starting and can't even get a line to stay in one place.

2. Can I scan a sketch to LibreCAD and work from there??

3. Will LibreCAD send .stl files to Mach3 to control a CNC milling machine??

4. Why do I have a headache from all of this?? I'm not entirely uneducated, I have a Doctor of Nursing degree and an MBA, but this is so new to me......

Thank you

Jacqui
Angel Optical

Hi Jacqui,

Look at the folder for user manual. I have been writing a manual there and is available for download. Claus is also writing part of the manual and you can download his manual there also. I have written the manual with the beginner in mind as I am a former CAD trainer.
I believe our manuals will help you very much.

Bob

Librecad is a substitute of the drawing board

1 Bob already answered
2. Yes, "Flie->import->image" to add scaned image into drawing and draw over it
3. No, .stl are a 3D format and LibreCAD are 2D. To generate .stl files you can use Blender or FreeCAD
4. You are entering into the world of descriptive geometry. A wonderful idiom

To design eyeglass in .stl format you can start drawing it in LibreCAD with acuracy, then open the created dxf file into FreeCAD to convert in 3D and save as .stl. But if you are new to CAD I suggest you start with something simpler like box to store the glasses. CAD power is not to start from scratch a job, is modify an existing job (similar) to create another.
See http://www.tux-lab.com/
This person uses LibreCAD, FreeCAD, Inkscape and Gimp to develop their products.

Thank you for all of the input and answers to a newbies questions, it really helps.

I downloaded FreeCAD and I don't feel as comfortable with it, but I'll keep playing with it a bit and see later. I love the idea that LibreCAD is open source, I'm going to continue following it even if I don't use it that much, it sounds like a fun project.

The manufacturer of the milling machine that I'm going to get has TurboCAD available at a reduced price, I may check it out some more. I'd like to try it first, but there doesn't seem to be a trial version for Ubuntu/Linux on their website.  

I'll be checking back in on this as I can. Hopefully my GoFundMe crowd sourcing project will raise enough money so that I can buy a decent computer to work with during the trials.