Hello! In my attempts to implement 5 axis waterjet cutting machine i have come to an issue of finding CAM software to be used for G-code creation.
So I have several questions: 1) can anyone suggest a 5 axis CAM program for waterjet, laser, plasma or any other cutting technology, where material is cut by some kind of beam - the easiest part in waterjet, compared to milling, is that it does not need several passes with calculations of incremental increase in cutting depth and other stuff, i need a code, where cutting head follows the line above the surface of material and gets tilted in a certain direction, according to drawing (working with sheet material with flat top and just tilting the head will do, i do not necessarily need option for 3D material surface; 2) for CAD part i would need to create drawings of parts, where contour on the top differs from contour on the bottom of the part - it is necessary either for compensating taper, which normally occurs during waterjet cutting (that would be - bottom contour is created, by offseting the top contour by 0,5 mm inwards) or for creating bevel parts with cutting edge under some angle against the surface (like a chamfer) or even for creating parts, where top is square and bottom is round - in certain situations such use of waterjet cutting can substitute roughing in a mill and considerably improve production time and cost. I have read about Blender, i have tried it, but i did not understand, how previously mentioned task could be achieved. There is a software for 5 axis waterjet cutting - IGEMS - which is very convinient and easy-to-use and, guess what, it costs more that 10k USD. I would like to find a solution with far less investment necessary, i expect that i will have to sacrifice the ease of use and convinience. 3) in case if i could use Blender (or any other similar software) for the design of parts, i would like to find out, if there is someone, who could adapt the G-code generating script of Blender to fit following requirements: a) create G-code, where cutting head just follows the line and gets tilted accordingly, if the edge to be cut is not perpendicular to surface b) no need for specific calculations of rotation axis offsets, it will be implemented in EMC kinematics module c) no need for specific calculations of Z axis movements - cutting head goes above surface of material, it is o.k. not to lift the head during G00 movements (it has been this way all the time with 2 axis controls) c) optional feature - enter the tilting angle between the plane of cutting edge and the plane of nozzle - this would be faster way to compensate for the taper, without modification of drawing. Direction of tilting ALWAYS is perpendicular to movement direction. Additional option - i would like to able to choose the direction of the tilt for each line (e.g. to the left or right - tilt inwards or outwards from the part), so that software does not need to recognize, which side of the line is part, which is scrap. I think that it is obvious - 3rd point involves financial expense for me, i just hope that it would not reach thousands of USD. I wanted to contact the author of the Blender G-code generating script at first to express this offer, but unfortunately i was not able to understand, what his e-mail would be: this spelling - Bartlomiej Ceglik yoyoek[ no spam ]wp[ dot ]pl - seems to be too difficult for me. with best regards, Viesturs 2010/3/21 Karl Schmidt <k...@xtronics.com>: > What are people using to generate tool paths? > > I dug into this a few years back and put my notes here: > > http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/CAD_CAM#Linux_friendly_CAD_CAM_packages > > I've not found usable Open-source software - so I'm looking for something > affordable that works. > > Can anyone compare bobcat with synergy? > > ,.,. > > I'm also interested in getting contacts from EMC users in the Lawrence - > Topeka - Kansas city area - > reply off list.. > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Karl Schmidt EMail k...@xtronics.com > Transtronics, Inc. WEB http://xtronics.com > 3209 West 9th Street Ph (785) 841-3089 > Lawrence, KS 66049 FAX (785) 841-0434 > > What is, is; > What was, was; > What might have been; never will be. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval > Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs > proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. > See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
