FreeCAD working philosophy?

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sliptonic
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Re: FreeCAD working philosophy?

Post by sliptonic »

inscrutable_objects wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 3:21 pm What I'm interested in is a CAD program that I can either bring in SVGs of gears (or create them here, just found the gear WB), arrange and rearrange them, design an enclosure, and then output SVGs of the parts to be cut out by the laser cutter.
Cool gears!
Does your laser only work from svg? I have a laser cutter as well but have mine set up to work from gcode. So I use the Path workbench to generate cut paths from my models.

The Path workbench also has a postprocessor that can output toolpaths to DXF format. Many lasers can use a dxf as input.
TheMarkster
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Re: FreeCAD working philosophy?

Post by TheMarkster »

There is also an involute gear option hidden away in the part design workbench menu. It creates a 2D object that should be suitable for laser cutting.
inscrutable_objects
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Re: FreeCAD working philosophy?

Post by inscrutable_objects »

sliptonic wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 3:32 pm
Cool gears!
Does your laser only work from svg? I have a laser cutter as well but have mine set up to work from gcode. So I use the Path workbench to generate cut paths from my models.

The Path workbench also has a postprocessor that can output toolpaths to DXF format. Many lasers can use a dxf as input.
Thank you!

I'm using Lightburn as the control software and it can handle a number of vector formats (including dxf). I'm not sure it can handle gcode though.

Thanks for the tip on the Path workbench.

TheMarkster wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 4:11 pm There is also an involute gear option hidden away in the part design workbench menu. It creates a 2D object that should be suitable for laser cutting.
I'll look into that. Thank you!

I've been playing a bit with the Gear workbench and really dig it. Mostly I've been using the gear generator I bought from here:
https://www.woodgears.ca/gear/index.html

It outputs SVG and DXF file types.
drmacro
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Re: FreeCAD working philosophy?

Post by drmacro »

inscrutable_objects wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 8:17 pm ...

I've been playing a bit with the Gear workbench and really dig it. Mostly I've been using the gear generator I bought from here:
https://www.woodgears.ca/gear/index.html
Mathias is pretty interesting. ;)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Spock: "...His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking."
TheMarkster
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Re: FreeCAD working philosophy?

Post by TheMarkster »

drmacro wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 8:30 pm
inscrutable_objects wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 8:17 pm ...

I've been playing a bit with the Gear workbench and really dig it. Mostly I've been using the gear generator I bought from here:
https://www.woodgears.ca/gear/index.html
Mathias is pretty interesting. ;)
Indeed he is, so creative and talented.
inscrutable_objects
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Re: FreeCAD working philosophy?

Post by inscrutable_objects »

TheMarkster wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 8:47 pm
drmacro wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 8:30 pm
inscrutable_objects wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 8:17 pm ...

I've been playing a bit with the Gear workbench and really dig it. Mostly I've been using the gear generator I bought from here:
https://www.woodgears.ca/gear/index.html
Mathias is pretty interesting. ;)
Indeed he is, so creative and talented.
And generous with his knowledge as well. I used his free gear generator when cutting gears out by hand for quite a while. I'm still not sure what made me hesitate to spend <$30 for the stand alone generator, but I haven't regretted it, especially now that I can just drop the output from it straight into Illustrator/AutoCAD for laser cutting.
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