My 2 cents.....Search for a program called CamBam...I think it's free, never used it but hear great things about it.
I
use high end SOLIDWORKS based cam packages at work so I don't have a
need for something like this. Learn basic Gcode...Not that hard... you'd
be surprised at what you can do with it
If you want to design components then even a simple CAD package is almost essential. Search "Free CAD software".
Quite a bit to choose from.
Good point Paul .... I believe that mach 3 package came with a file called lazycam that may do the same thing, but I haven't the foggiest? Thanks for the note. PM