New to the Forum and CNC

Community Discussion 📄 General
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Hi All,

I just picked up my first CNC and am in the learning stages. My goal is to begin to produce items that will sell and enable me to eventually get the AltMill! I am working at learning VCarve Pro and I have a long way to go. Any help or advice you could lend to help me get off to a good start would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
John

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Hi John,

What got me on my feet, even before I had my mill up and running were the tutorials from IDC-Woodcraft. It is focussed on Vectric and Longmill, recently shifting to the Altmill. These tutorials are slow paced, what is a good thing when you are just starting to dive into the CNC world.

Here’s the absolute beginners guide to Vcarve tutorial. If you like this one, you can follow the rabbit into the hole that is Garrets video page.

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@JohnD Welcome to the group, John.

I highly recommend Mark Lindsay’s youtube channel for instruction in Vectric products. He has several streams to follow from beginners to more advanced lessons.

If you are prepared to pay for information, look to learnyourcnc.com. Kyle has a few different lesson plans, again dealing with Vectric products.

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Welcome to the group John!

I think the videos that @Spamming_Eddie and @gwilki linked are probably a good place to start. I have some links that may come in handy as you progress in learning CNC. You don’t need to know this stuff to get started but they may be useful later, I still use them pretty often after several years of CNC.

I’m assuming that your CNC uses GRBL:
GRBL alarm and error codes
Detailed description of GRBL firmware settings
G-code reference

I didn’t use many videos in my CNC learning, I prefer to read so I can go at my own pace. I did learn a lot from searching and reading this forum as well as the Vectric documentation. Also the Resources section at the top of this page has a lot of good information about gSender and other Sienci products. Some of the information is relevant regardless of your machine manufacturer, like safety and problems that could affect machines of similar design.

There are lots of nice folks here that are willing to help when you need it so don’t be shy!

Good luck, stay safe and enjoy the ride!

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Thank you Eddie! I appreciate the link!

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I am assuming it uses GRBL as it is a Sainsmart Machine

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It probably does, my first machine was a Sainsmart Genmitsu prover 3018. It was a nice little machine to get my feet wet in the CNC waters. I’ve had a LongMill 30x30 since 2021 and it was quite the upgrade but like I said the 3018 was nice to get started without breaking the bank.

I hope you enjoy your journey in CNC as much as I did mine.

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I am starting with the 4040 Pro with the 600x600 extension option. Which I guess makes it a 6060 pro :). Anyway I didn’t want to spend 3 grand to see if I liked it. I will get the AltMill if this all works out. I have downloaded gSender, and the free trial of VCarve Pro. I am working on watching the tutorial while I wait on my machine to arrive. I am planning on building the bench for it today.

Thanks again for the help!
John

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