When I started with CNC I had the same problem. I built the machine… then how do I use it to do anything other than make a crown?
I tried inkscape, freecad, blender to make the svg file and finally settled on coreldraw. Once the vector drawing is made, I tried carbide create, inkscape gcodetools, kiri:moto, and a couple others and finally stayed with estlcam to generate the gcode.
Since I had a 3d printer, it made sense to stay with the familiar and use marlin on the cnc and connect it to octopi just like the 3D printer. The difference though is that the cnc must be driven each and every time to get home positioned before starting the job and making sure z is correctly set. I found that moving it where I want, then power cycling the controller board made it find home where it booted, but then it isn’t always guaranteed to be square. That worked well enough (I sheepishly admit) until I learned how to endstop home and then shuttle the thing around and reset home.
To make designs useable, the trick was finding the software I was going to go with and I’m still learning how to use them. There are many many ways you can go from concept to gcode to completed part and there isn’t a “right” way to do it. I do mostly 2.5D cutouts. I haven’t even gotten to 3D topgraphical carving yet and adding a laser, which would likely means a different software set like lightburn and grbl… so the workflow I use now may very well change depending on the project.
I use coreldraw 2018 (or 19 ) , estlcam, octopi to upload the gcode, manually home the cnc from the lcd marlin screen, then start the cut with my smart phone from the octopi web page. For this workflow, a pendant would be nice, but with a limited amount of time, the focus is on completing the cut, not bling on the machine.
If you have no familiarity with any of the software packages, it might make sense to find a simple project like a square that you can make 3 of and pick 3 workflows and try 3 different programs to make the svg and 3 different ones to make the gcode and see which one seems reasonable to invest your time to learn. There is no wrong answer here, just time spent learning that might have been cutting time. Once you have one software set picked out, you can focus on getting the settings correct and mastering the feeds and speeds for your machine.
