Creating CNC roughing and finishing passes
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Creating CNC roughing and finishing passes
Hi guys,
I am very new to CAD and CAM, so please forgive me if I am asking questions that sound stupid or may have been answered before. I built a CNC machine. Well, I actually bought a frame and connected it to an Arduino Uno flashed with grbl. Now I can finally play with designing small objects and cutting them out of wood or plastic and most recently out of machinable wax...
What I am trying to do next is to create several paths starting with a larger tool for rough shaping and when I get withing a mm or so from the final creation switch to a smaller end mill for a finishing pass that should look similar to this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqAkY9mBA4U
For that purpose I started with a cube and a semi-sphere attached to it and tried the various paths available in the path workbench but they all created lots of passes with fixes Z axis and cutter moving strictly horizontally. I would like the finishing pass move end to end in a zigzag pattern while the Z axis follows the relief (just like in the video above).
Sorry I am not using the right terminology but as I said before, this is all very new to me.
Thanks for developing FreeCAD and hope to join you one day. I am actually a software engineer but my professional work is completely unrelated to CAD and CAM software.
I am very new to CAD and CAM, so please forgive me if I am asking questions that sound stupid or may have been answered before. I built a CNC machine. Well, I actually bought a frame and connected it to an Arduino Uno flashed with grbl. Now I can finally play with designing small objects and cutting them out of wood or plastic and most recently out of machinable wax...
What I am trying to do next is to create several paths starting with a larger tool for rough shaping and when I get withing a mm or so from the final creation switch to a smaller end mill for a finishing pass that should look similar to this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqAkY9mBA4U
For that purpose I started with a cube and a semi-sphere attached to it and tried the various paths available in the path workbench but they all created lots of passes with fixes Z axis and cutter moving strictly horizontally. I would like the finishing pass move end to end in a zigzag pattern while the Z axis follows the relief (just like in the video above).
Sorry I am not using the right terminology but as I said before, this is all very new to me.
Thanks for developing FreeCAD and hope to join you one day. I am actually a software engineer but my professional work is completely unrelated to CAD and CAM software.
Re: Creating CNC roughing and finishing passes
I think I almost found what I was looking for...
I enabled path experimental features as described here: https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Path_experimental
And finally saw the 3DSurface as a Path option. The drop-cutter pattern seems to be what I was asking for but there is still one thing that I am missing in this path - the ability to set overlap (step over percent).
Is there a way to define overlapping between the multiple passes the cutter is doing?
Thanks!
I enabled path experimental features as described here: https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Path_experimental
And finally saw the 3DSurface as a Path option. The drop-cutter pattern seems to be what I was asking for but there is still one thing that I am missing in this path - the ability to set overlap (step over percent).
Is there a way to define overlapping between the multiple passes the cutter is doing?
Thanks!
- sliptonic
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Re: Creating CNC roughing and finishing passes
Not from the task panel but there's a step-over percent property.prius06 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 24, 2018 5:43 pm I think I almost found what I was looking for...
I enabled path experimental features as described here: https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Path_experimental
And finally saw the 3DSurface as a Path option. The drop-cutter pattern seems to be what I was asking for but there is still one thing that I am missing in this path - the ability to set overlap (step over percent).
Is there a way to define overlapping between the multiple passes the cutter is doing?
Thanks!
Re: Creating CNC roughing and finishing passes
Is this new?
All I have in my version (13528 (Git)) under Surface is "Sample Interval"
All I have in my version (13528 (Git)) under Surface is "Sample Interval"
- sliptonic
- Veteran
- Posts: 3459
- Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 10:46 pm
- Location: Columbia, Missouri
- Contact:
Re: Creating CNC roughing and finishing passes
Ah. You didn't include your freecad info but I should have assumed you might be using the 0.17 release. What I showed is in the current development branch for 0.18. Sorry.
Re: Creating CNC roughing and finishing passes
That's fine. Are there plans to release that soon? If not, is the dev branch available as windows installable?
Thanks
Re: Creating CNC roughing and finishing passes
We are hoping to release 0.18 by the end of the year.
No installer, but there are portable builds available: https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/rele ... g/0.18_pre
Just unzip the file (you'll need https://www.7-zip.org/) and run FreeCAD.exe from the bin sub-directory of the extracted directory. The dev version can exist side by side with 0.17 installed version.
A request would be to use the py3 version "FreeCAD_0.18.14451_Conda_Py3QT5-WinVS2016_x64.7z" to increase PY3 testing/bug-reporting, but a PY2 version is also available "FreeCAD_0.18.14451_x64_dev_win.7z" The exact version is updated regularly.
"fight the good fight"
Re: Creating CNC roughing and finishing passes
https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/rele ... g/0.18_pre
0.18 seems to be as stable as 0.17. The release is due end of the year, no exact date is fixed yet.
Edit: hadn't seen that sgrogan had already answered.
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Re: Creating CNC roughing and finishing passes
Thanks very much for the help!
Re: Creating CNC roughing and finishing passes
I guess I am getting closer but... now I am getting
"This operation requires OpenCamLib to be installed"
And based on the Github instructions I have to rebuild it after installing Python .... and Boost...
Is there a shortcut to get the ocl.pyd from somewhere so it can be installed in Freecad?
Thanks
"This operation requires OpenCamLib to be installed"
And based on the Github instructions I have to rebuild it after installing Python .... and Boost...
Is there a shortcut to get the ocl.pyd from somewhere so it can be installed in Freecad?
Thanks