Foxalien CNC

https://www.routerforums.com/forums/

https://thepatriotwoodworker.com/

Those are the two I know of that have good CNC forums, there are without a doubt many more.  There is one user who frequent's both and teaches this stuff at a college in Kansas.  He's very helpful and patient in my experience.  Hang out in either one a while and you'll spot him.  There's also going to be a channel or six on reddit for this, but reddit has a generational flavor I dislike, so I stick to forums.  Most other resources are AI driven or geared towards sales, and thus less than helpful.

I'm working on getting a small CNC, since I finally figured out an effective means of work holding for a part I make regularly.  I have a friend who does a lot of CNC metalwork, copying vintage sheet forming dies and making repros of them.  He said they can easily scan my part and output the gcode for me, then I'll just need a gcode interpolator (or whatever they are really called) to run the machine.  On commercial metal CNC's that interpolator is usually built into the machine, I'm not sure yet what is usual for CNC routers.

@John in NM

Thanks.  Here is a G code G code sender program that is free to use.  I downloaded it yesterday and played with it a bit.  I don't have my CNC yet, it will be here Monday.  

I have been watching Youtube videos of everything from how to put it together to how to do a complex job.  There is one person on Youtube that does a pretty good job of explaining things.  His name is James Dean CNC here is a sample of how he explains things.

I will look into the links you posted. 

I was just down in Lordsburg NM two weeks ago. Was I close to you?

Have a good day
Mike

Not quite close, about three hours away.  I'm in the mountains above Alamogordo.

Man, there is not much in Lordsburg.  I used to commute through there every week.  At the time it was one of the cheapest places for gas, so I stopped a lot.  There used to be a fantastic Mexican restaurant there too, but I don't know if it survived the pandemic.

Thanks for the link.  I've downloaded the gcode sender for linux and windows, as I don't know yet which one I will use.  Likely depends on the machine I'm going to buy (second hand) and whether a PC comes with and how its configured.

@John in NM

There still isn't much there.  My wife and I were on a road trip from eastern TN to Yuma then back.  We just stopped when ever we saw something  that looked interesting.  There is a ghost town called Shakespeare near there.  The guy gives tours.  He also maintains it.  He is fighting a loosing battle right now, he really needs some help.  If you get a chance it is a nice little place with a blacksmith shop full of tools.

https://www.shakespeareghostown.com

I've never driven over to Shakespeare, it does look interesting.  There's a similar ghost town next to the freeway right at the border with AZ named Steins, but I don't know if they are still doing tours.  The owner was killed during a robbery around 2011, his family was talking about reopening it for tours, but I don't know if they ever did.  It was a recurring news item around the state for a while.

Steins was never as big as Shakespeare though, no shallow enough water back in the day.  The railroad quarried rock for rail bedding there, so they hauled water in for the residents, at least until they didn't (1940's).

The other interesting thing about that area is that wild desert poppies bloom in the spring, turning all the east and northeast facing hill slopes bright orange.