Newbee -- After Design Then What.... CNC and 3D Printing

[jmh]

Just wanted to see about getting some advice as it seems obvious many in this forum have experience with both CNC Milling/Routers and 3D Printing. I have no direct experience and only a bit of understanding from web searches so am probably missing a lot!

My understanding is that I can probably do fine with FreeCAD and 3D Printing with STL files (and maybe the VRML? files). The printers all seem to come with "slicer" type software that can read the STL file and send the instructions to the printer to produce the correct printing instrutions.

What about CNC? Do home/"desktop" CNC kits also work with any files FreeCAD produces natively or will I alway need to have another application to generate the G code for the machine to actually know what the cutting path will be?

Any and all advice welcomed!

[NormandC]

My understanding is that I can probably do fine with FreeCAD and 3D Printing with STL files (and maybe the VRML? files).

More than fine if you ask me, but then I may be biased

For things like mechanical parts, apart from CAD programs from the big companies (Autodesk, Dassault/SolidWorks, Siemens PLM Software, PTC), I'd say FreeCAD has almost no competition. The good thing is it's a solid modeler, which some free software like Sketchup aren't; or in other cases, disabled software will only export to mesh format (DesignSpark Mechanical) or limit the number of parts in an assembly.

For more organic shapes (figurines), you'd be best with Blender which is also open source.

As for VRML, I don't think this format is used in 3D printing. Some slicers can import OBJ but STL is the standard.

The printers all seem to come with "slicer" type software that can read the STL file and send the instructions to the printer to produce the correct printing instrutions.

It depends. Commercial 3D printers come with bundled software including a slicer. For open source 3D printers (RepRap), you usually have to download your toolchain (host software, slicer) from a few sources. There are quite a few open source options in that regard. The slicer will generate a g-code file that you then open in the host software. Some host software embed a slicer or communicate with it so you don't need to deal with two programs.

BTW there is a FreeCAD plugin that can be used to generate g-code directly from FreeCAD.

[jmh]

I was being understated in my statement.

After posting I did come across Marks post in the CAM foum (Thanks Mark!) where he talks about the G Code plug in. I'll have to look at that but it sounds like that's all I'll need, though the 3D printer I'm thinking off include software for reading the STL and a slicer application to generate the G code for pringing each layer.

Thanks for the input normandc, it's helping ease the doubts I've been having.

John

Edit - Going back to look it seems the link is to Cura which seems to be good for 3D printers (like the idea of having everything in FreeCAD for generating the code and reading some of the old thread sounds like we might even end up with better code for the printer). I'm not sure that' works well for generating Gcode for a milling macing though -- printers are additive and mills subtractive processes.