Software to use in classroom setting

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I have 1f on order and it is to be used in a in a community shop that a few guys and I have been preparing to open (Knox County Community Artisans.) Like any other construction project it has taken longer than anticipated. I have bought Vcarve Pro and like it a lot. We will be encouraging our members to use the 1f. We will be offering some training and classes. The problem is Vcarve is to expensive to buy for training and they will not allow us to qualify for education use which would have worked. I have signed up for Fusion 360 and looked at it and it requires a steep learning curve. I am looking for some recommendation for other software preferably free. By the way I am probably the only one who has told 1f to not ship me yet. I know that if I got the unit that is all I would be working on not the stuff in our shop.

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Depending on your organization, you might be eligible for the vectric maker space edition. You can read about it here.

https://www.vectric.com/support/makerspace-sign-up

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Thank you Daryl, I just looked at education.

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I live in a retirement community in sun city west AZ. I’m a member of the wood club there. There are several hundred members and about 50 use the CNC’s. We got the Vectric vcarve pro makers license. It allows each member to do designs on their own computers and create the Gcode files on the master license machine in the shop.

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HI Stephen - seems like you can secure a decent license for the maker space. For the members to use outside of the space, there are a couple options:

Easel by Inventables
Carbide Create by Carbide 3D.
Fusion 360

Though Fusion is more complicated than the others, it is the most complete, end to end solution for CAD and CAM. You can use template tool paths and tool libraries from the bit manufacturers to reduce the learning curve. Plus, there are plenty of videos on the Internet to learn from as well.

Hope this helps.

-Tom

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Thanks Tom I will look into them.
I think I have read every post on the forum but his has been my first post and I have never experienced the sense of community the is displayed here on every other forum. Sure not like most others that are just like social media.

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