So from a 3D printing background and just build a CNC Mill.
1st observation, wiring a CNC machine Vs a 3D printer is a walk in the park compared.
What makes up for that however is getting a cad model exported to something that will cut correctly is much harder than I thought it would be.
I see a lot of broken bits in my learning curve.
I’m going the other direction. Tuning this 3d printer is killing me.
One thing that may help with broken bits is to remove less material slowly. There are speed and feed calculators online. They may give you an idea on where to start.
+Gee Willikers what printer? As long as it’s solid, tuning shouldn’t be too bad.
Air or wax cut before you do a deep complicated cut in metal . I usually proto in pine.
You can’t just export a CAD model. You need CAM software to program tool paths. Try Autodesk Fusion 360. It’s an integrated CAD/CAM package and it is free. Tons of tutorials on YouTube.
@John_Bump
I agree. Cuts lots of air before you run a tool. Some even say run a simulation first too. I use software called Camotics for that.
I haven’t broken anything yet. I’m just noticing that with different cam software it will sometimes move in opposite directions for what I’d think is the same cut
When I did a txt file with the moves it goes 100% but life’s to short to spend it manually writing gcode. I’ve tried generating with fusion 360 and the makercam online one. I’ll try the laserweb one now and see.
The learning curve is just learning the terminology like pocket etc to know what it does.
There is an open source visualization program that was called oscam. They have since renamed it to something else. It might be worth a look.
The visualization program was called openscam, which they decided was a poor choice of names. I believe it’s now called camotics, although all my installations are old enough they’re still under the original name. Getting tool files worked out for it is kind of weird the first time but it does an acceptable job.
@Michael_Scholtz : when you say the tool is going the opposite way you expect, that’s likely a setting you can change. If you’ve already read about this sorry about the repeat but in subtractive machining with a rotary tool, you can either advance the tool into the workpiece in or against the direction of rotation of the tool. Those are called climb or conventional milling respectively. Usually a CAM program will allow you to specify one or the other, which will constrain the movement along a path to one direction. A bad CAM program (like the one I use) does a lousy job of finding the part outline so it produces a very fragmented toolpath, but even a good CAM program can often be better optimized by a smart person. Also, if you spend some time with graph paper you can often do a somewhat complex chunk of g-code by hand pretty quickly once you’ve tried it a few times. There are some old gcode tricks that modern cam programs don’t use, that make manual coding much easier: arc segments with G3, and cutter radius compensation that allows you to enter the exact outline of the part and tell the machine what tool to use and it then calculates the toolpath to produce your outline with the tool it has.
@Michael_Scholtz welcome to the opposing grounds.-:). I wrote out a pretty detailed description labeled “how to CNC” I don’t advertise as I hate the groups that spam so won’t link here. I’m not hard to find though if you need help.
Agreed cabling a router/mill is a walk in the park compared to a 3D printer.
Basically I related your exact scenario, printing to routing/milling.
Both need a CAD file to start. The 3D printing guys get spoiled with sites like thingiverse etc. the models there… then one slices via slic3r etc to create Gcode.
The CNC router/mill is very similar but so much info is out there one can get overwhelmed quickly. Simply put one just changes the STL file for a DXF ( although you can still use an STL) and instead of slic3r or such one needs a CAM software to add too paths to create Gcode.
Sounds like you have most of this but know you ve been a long time contributor if you have any questions, would be happy to assist.
Chipload. That’s what routing, milling, and lathe work is all about.