Aspire 4 has been released

[Kevin L. Waldron]

Keith,

I'm for sure not so advanced..... started our like most of you guys and learned the hard way..... trial and error. Along the way I did discover things that helped and things that hurt. For what we are doing with musical instruments we almost always start with a good clean 2D drawing of what we are trying to do and from there we graduated to making them 3D.

ATP is used by many of the more advanced cabinet software packages...... basically it takes cabinets drawn that are on various layers and automatically places the items on proper sheets using some predetermined layer name setup. You have a strategy/name for that layer that is contained with in a csv file. Enroute for instance processes the items drawn as DXF files along with a written csv file and it will automatically take your cabinet parts and nest them on a sheet and perform the strategy for that layer/name..... including tool bit, similar paths, depths etc. So if you draw a cabinet for instance with all of it's components and it's drawn on the correct layers the software will automatically place it in proper position and your ready to cut without having to define each individual part and toolpath. (Artcam and Enroute both have these capabilities.....)

On the instruments such as a mandolin we have found that Aspire just doesn't have the muscle to do a good clean job given the toolpaths that exist. A mandolin is a fairly compound complex instrument and requires a few tools, toolpaths, and entry exit strategies that just aren't available...... Can someone do a mandolin with Aspire sure ...... will it be a finished project...... probably not with out a lot of hand work.

As for 3D files....... we have a very extensive library of 3D files and we personally found we couldn't make any money with the cutting of these detailed 3D files....( the time was huge and we have a large commercial type machine with cutting speeds to 1200 ipm ) Not saying other can't but when we first got our cnc our hope was that we could build entry doors and offer the 3D carvings on the doors..... In our Nashville market...... we found few clients willing to pay for the cost of the product .....thus our search and discovery of musical instruments. It would be interesting to see how many of the forum users are actually making money with the 3D carvings day in day out compared to producing other products ...... sounds good and fun to play with....... and I've seen a number of you guys mantels and etc. and they look great and I wish you all the best. Our experience was a lot of time and little profit compared to producing other items. ( No I haven't received the 3D files...... for the upgrade of Aspire. )

As for Aspire it is a good stable program and I do like it, easy to run and use, but personally wish they would go a little different direction than improving the drawing capability with so many other 3D drawing programs available at a reasonable cost.

Thank you for this forum and the ability to at-least express one's thoughts.

Blessings,

Kevin