Going from Cabinet Planner to CNC

[Kebs Coutinho]

This might sound ridiculous but how do you guys go from drawing on Cabinet Planner to actually cutting in a cnc? We have been very fortunate until now that a good friend of mine has a big cnc machine and cabinet vision to go along with it, but we will no longer be able to use his shop for that. I’ve always done my drawings on Cabinet Planner and then doing it in cabinet vision.

[Dkidd]

This might sound ridiculous but how do you guys go from drawing on Cabinet Planner to actually cutting in a cnc? We have been very fortunate until now that a good friend of mine has a big cnc machine and cabinet vision to go along with it, but we will no longer be able to use his shop for that. I’ve always done my drawings on Cabinet Planner and then doing it in cabinet vision.

I have a CNC, so I use the .dxf output function in Cabinet Planner. I also output in panel layout mode 2 which gives me defined names for layers. I then import those file into Vectric VCarve Pro to create the cut / toolpath files. Vectric has the capability of importing the layer names and setting up toolpaths for the CNC from templates that I setup for each name. I then output the cut files via a Post Processor file for my machine that I have imported into VCarve. It outputs the G-Code for my CNC. Unless you are a reasonably large shop with a lot of volume, Cabinet Vision is likely not cost effective e.g. too expensive. Cabinet Planner does a nice job of outputting the cut profiles that can be imported into a tool that creates cnc toolpath files. 

I would imagine that there are some other shops out there with a CNC that would do custom cutting for you. Unfortunately, they probably won't be offering the "friends and family" pricing you are used to through your friend's workplace. You could also post on some of the woodworking forums or other social media platforms to see if there are any freelancers or "CNC for hire" folks near you. Some of the tool suppliers have forums as well, such as ShopBot and others.  

For background, I purchased my used commercial grade machine via an auction and spent a significant amount of time getting it up and running. In the end, it was well worth the investment as it has the capacity to do large jobs. I do a lot of work for non-profits e.g. churches, local tool library, fire departments, missions, etc. It would be cost prohibitive for most of these folks to pay full retail for the work. Cabinet Planner is a very reasonably priced tool for basic cabinet layouts and servers as a great tool for those of us that find software as a service / monthly subscription models (SAS) or commercial cabinet software out of reach.