Introduction To Carveco

CAD (Design) Software Carveco
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Hi all, I thought I’d introduce myself and give a little background on Carveco. Im and we are a British company, based in the middle of England (close to stratford upon avon - known for william shakespeare)

I’m Rob Newman one of the founders of Carveco, and for those not familiar with it, well, if you have heard of ArtCAM then basically that is us. We are the original ArtCAM team (pre Autodesk), when it was part of Delcam.

Under the hood Carveco is ArtCAM so you benefit from all the toolpathing quality that ArtCAM had, which was the Powermill engine. If you aren’t familiar with ArtCAM, then historically it was running for over 25 years, and Vectric was actually a spin off of ArtCAM, when Brian Moran and Tony Mac left ArtCAM to setup Vectric. We obviously see alot of comparison between the products but they do differ, and we love the guys over at Vectric, as we worked with most of them for years, and like all good competitors and friends we have good banter with them so which ever product you go with you’ll be in good hands. But obviously we would love you to try Carveco Maker and Maker Plus.

We have 3 different tiers, Maker , Maker Plus and Carveco, our Maker and Maker Plus range get the job done for most but those that really need the detail quality in microns we do have the flagship product Carveco. Maker is aimed more at 2d design and machining, but also offers 3d import and 3d machining, where as Maker Plus offers 2d and 3d design (shape creation) and 2d and 3d machining, along with more production based machining capability.

If you get shocked at the Carveco price tag as we see that pop up alot on forums and facebook, then just think this is niche, and is used by large brand companies to create the things we all use on a daily basis. So for example, Carveco (the flagship version) is used by most of the worlds Mints to make the coins we use daily, its used to design alot of the candy and confectionary, its used in movie props, its used to create the greeting cards we send and its also used by fine jewellers. But the cool part is that our maker and maker plus products are based upon our Carveco product with certain bits of functionality removed, so you get the same quality of toolpaths and design options just fewer niche features. Comparison wise Maker and VCarve Pro and close, and Maker Plus and Aspire and close.

As for training material we push it all out for free, https://carveco.com/support/training/

My aim is to be on the Onefinity forum as much as possible to answer questions and jump in but not try to push purchase us views, and Ill try to help out on other posts where possible.

Also how excited is everyone about getting the OneFinity Machine?

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Great of you to introduce yourself and offer support. I just purchased a Carveco Maker subscription, hoping to do more artsy projects (signs and such) and inlay work. Will check out the learning resources.

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Thank you Robert for an overview on the Carveco product line. As someone who is completely new to the world of CNC, software is definitely an area that I’m a little overwhelmed with at the moment. I don’t know which direction I’ll go with projects but the 3D carving is something that really has me excited to learn so ive been looking at Carveco over the last few days. Roger Webb on YT has some great videos that ive been watching, hopefully one day I can be just half as good as he is.

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Hey Jake, great to meet you, I can be very overwhelming at the start, but in no time you’ll be up and running and it will become natural. Making things on machines is so much fun and its all about experimenting.

Roger Webb is a lovely guy, and his YT videos are great, TBH a good few great YouTubers about. Im here to help where ever I can, we are a pretty contactable company, you will find us all over Facebook Groups, and on forums, and on YouTube and everywhere else, as its not just a job its a hobby and we love seeing what people make.

Im really looking forward to seeing what people are producing , and looking forward to chatting with people more.

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Hey Garrett great to meet you. The artsy stuff is what we love aswell. I have a couple of other guys coming to me tomorrow to do a sort of make off over lunch as a personal fun challenge, trying somethign we havent done before. We are setting up 2 gazebos with 2 machines and seeing what can be done. A bit of fun for a wednesday to lighten the week up.

Looking forward to seeing what you do.

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Hello Robert,
I bought a one year subscription to Maker, will probably upgrade to Maker+ soon. After using Smartcam for about 30 years and Mastercam for about 10 years, I appreciate the quality of your product. All of my work has been on vertical milling machines. Recently retired and excited to get my Onefinity in September. New to the artsy side, so there will definitely be a learning curve. Wondering if there is a post processor yet for the Onefinity?

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@sghawley we haven’t yet got a postprocessor, it is something we are working on with Onefinity. They usually don’t take to long to sort out producing its just getting the testing correct.

Coming from Mastercam (great package) and on vertical mills this will be a great fun for you, the learning curve shouldn’t be that bad coming from other products either and having machining knowledge certainly helps.

I am so excited to see what people will be producing. Any ideas what you are thinking of making?

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Hi Rob
Thanks for the introduction I recently purchased a one year membership but haven’t started yet but have watched a few of you training videos.
Like others I am brand new to cnc so am very nervous and excited about my onefinity purchase and hope I can in time use it to the full.
I too really enjoy Roger Webb videos he is very understated.
I am based in Bournemouth and would love to meet you guys.
Regards Jason.

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Hey Jason,

Once this whole pandamedic has slowed down more we will welcome anyone to come and visit us, and even spend some time playing in the workshop when its back up and running, and for those in the US, we will look at doing something else aswell once travel restrictions are lifted.

Software makes alot more sense when it is running on a machine, and the only way to truly understand it is to play and listen to it.

Alot of great content creators about, with brilliant step by step videos on how to. Certainly worth watching a few.

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@RobNewman any word on the post processor? In the meantime which generic PP would work for 1F?

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So Ben Myers yesterday tested one that we sent him over and it appears all good, so Leighton will be converting the rest of them today and tomorrow, and Ill upload them on here, and pass them to OneFinity and we will also put them in the next build of software.

Im so excited to see what people will create.

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Leighton is brilliant, if their is a guy in the industry that knows software and machines its him. He spent a large number of years working for machine manufacturers before joining ArtCAM in 2010. In the past he has worked on video content and trained people in, Mastercam, Rhino, Powermill, Fusion 360, Vectric, and he knows his tooling. I’ve never seen anyone get so excited over compression tools.

His videos are brilliant, yet we struggle to get his face in front of the camera.

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I’ve been trying to a Leighton tutorial every day. I have Carveco on one screen and his video on the other, i just try to follow along and does what he does. He’s awesome, please pass that along.

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Rob,

Do you know of any tutorial videos on doing V carved inlays? Is this something Carveco Maker is well suited for?

Thanks.

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Have the software and had issues with installing it and the customer support was quick to reply and help me get it straighten out.

haven’t seen a video yet but watching yours noticed that there is a lot more toolbar option on the top of the screen. How do i add the additional icons?

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The icons at the top depend upon which of the 3 versions of product you have as it if functionality dependent, and we create videos for each product. We do try to create videos in the relevant software, but somethings you can do in multiple products, its like a tier system. Also one thing that is cool is that we have different modes, so in the windows menu we have layout and under that you have 3 different modes, standard, classic and advanced. Personally I’m an advanced layout guy, Leighton is a Standard.

Also I’m really glad our support got back to you quickly and got you up and running.

Rob

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Owww, let me check to see if Leighton has created a video for this. Carveco Maker does have the Inlay Toolpath in so it would be doable, I will certainly get back to you on this.

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Thanks. I did see the video on doing inlays with straight cuts, but wondering about v carving.

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As a complete novice to CNC and awaiting for Santa to bring my 1F in December I just want to make sure I have got my head around what software etc is needed to actually getting the machine up and running.
First is the CAD end where I have a basic knowledge, 2nd is CAM - after various YT searches- I favour Carveco and 3rd requirement is the post-processor. Has Carveco a post processor for the IF as yet?
Is my 3 step thinking correct?
What CAD-CAM- Post processor set up can some of you guys recommend?
Any and all help appreciated.

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Hey Pat, So Carveco products take care of the design and the toolpathing side of the equation the CAD and CAM, including creating the GCode in the form of a Onefinity Post Processor, which we do have and has been approved and checked.

So you can basically do the whole lot in Carveco Maker or Maker Plus. But if you do have more questions, please reply, or tag me in a post, and ill get back to you and help where I can

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