Which laptop for CAD CNC?
Hello dear community,
I'm currently in the process of setting up my own traveling carpentry business. Now I want to do some CAD drawings every now and then and use my impulse purchase from last year, a Sainsmart Genmitsu CNC.
I'm designing freestanding furniture, built-in cabinets, and small items like that. I want to use the CNC to mill some business cards and small shapes/patterns, so nothing too complex.
I need a laptop for this, but which one? Do I really have to pay €1500+ for a beginner model with these capabilities? Can you recommend one? I'm also looking for the right drawing program. I've already drawn quite a bit with AutoCad, but it's not my favorite program. Fusion 360 has integrated CNC software. Do you recommend it?
Feel free to share your experiences, I’m curious.
(2 votes)
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For this, every “thing” that was built in the last 15 years is enough.
So the laptop doesn’t have to be much.
You can use FreeCAD to construct. This should be more than enough for your purposes and is totally free.
How to use this in this book you can easily learn:
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B08YXRJGC1/
FreeCAD has also integrated a CAM software. Here is the job in the guide of FreeCAD
https://wiki.freecad.org/CAM_Workbench/de
If you just want to engrave, you can use “CopperCAM”, but this is not free. This has some functions that are adapted to the engraving. Actually, this is meant to mill boards, so to mill the conductor tracks out. There are more possibilities to “mill on the fast” contours with certain properties. You can also try the demo, which allows only a few contours, but to get a “Hello World” into a board is enough. You can play around and find out if that’s all you need.
P.S.:
FreeCAD is also available for Linux. Then you don’t need to be afraid that you have to throw the laptop away because of the supporters from the Windows version that’s just running on it.
Linux also runs quite well on very old hardware, so you can have very long “the latest version” and updates.
If you have CAD drawing you should have a relatively large screen, the performance of GPU is absolutely no matter and the CPU does not have to be particularly dolle.
You don’t need a monster of power.
What do you think of rugged laptops, so ultra stable, dust and water protected, so also well suited for dirty and dusty workshop environments?
For example, this would be such a device:
https://amzn.to/3RPlFvF