All, I’ve had Easel Pro for three years, it just expired, and have been disappointed by the dearth of training for the product (with the exception of course of how wonderfully helpful all of you have been).
Understand that this comes from a man who spent a 30+ year career training customers on the use of our products, so perhaps my expectations in this new ‘don’t ask, go figure it our yourself’ era in which I find myself may be unrealistic.
But given that the customer service telephone number seems to go to a voicemail EVERY time that it is called, coupled with no company provided training, I’m wondering if I should be renewing my subscription, or moving to a more common and better supported software platform. If the latter, I’m wondering if any of you on here have opinions. I am not familiar with all of the offerings available.
Any thoughts or insight would be appreciated
Assuming you want to work in 3d, you’ll find most software has a learning curve, some are more intuitive than others. I draw in Rhino3d. I’m self taught and worked through their examples until I could do what I wanted to do. Fusion360 seems to be the popular one these days and there are a lot of resources available….but you’d still have to learn it. Easel free can handle a lot of things if you aren’t doing a lot of 3d. For 3d Cam, I use meshcam. That creates the Gcode for 3d..and 2d, although I’ve never used that aspect of it.
I am coming up on one year with Easel Pro - agree ‘instructions’ are limited, but have found the forums and with a little trial/error I have mastered most of 2D milling with Easel. Most of the other applications out there have more of a learning curve then Easel (have played with VCarve Pro and that may be closest to Easel easy of use).
I would like to see a lot more enhancements in Easel and a restart on CabinetMaker, but still think it is a good option for me.
I think that I am a 3D thinker stuck in a 2D world and happy for it. Until I learn more about 3D machining my 2D machines are serving me well. One of my most proud adaptations has been installing a Nema 23 on a 4" rotary table. The SMC02 driver/controller is very easy to use after you get used to Asian english terminology. The hardest think to learn for the SMC02 is deciding on how to use the pre sorted hardware. You can set it to do step movements, degrees,angular rotation, wait time, partial rotating, full rotation and anything in between,etc. One of the biggest features is that there are only 6 wires to worry about. One for each of the 4 fields and the 2 power supply.
DC Stepper Motor Driver and Controller, ZK-SMC02 Integrated Board DC 5~30V 4A Forward/Reverse Pulse Speed Angle Control Module Programmable PLC Serial Communication Drive All-in-One for 42 57 Motor, Controls - Amazon Canada
If my 2&1/2D projects ever gets caught up, I hope to play in that arena.
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One picture shows my rotary table with controller and one of a bushing that was. Spot drilled as I had to spot and drill hundreds of them.
I have been using X-carve / Easel Pro for the past 3 years. When I heard that that they weren’t making the X-carve any more, I felt betrayed. There was no public notice of the stoppage and I immediately Thought about Support and availability of parts etc.
After a lot of thought, I decided it was time to move up to a real CNC machine. So after checking out and comparing many machines, I found that most come with their own cam/cad software. And most seem fairly simple like Easel Pro.
So, I purchased a Carbide 3D Shapeoko 5.1 Pro 4X4 with Carbide Create & Carbide Motion software. The Cad/cam software is free unless you want 3D. Then it’s an extra $142 a year for Carbide Create Pro. And….the basic Cad/cam software if free to anyone. Check it out.
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