Honestly I WISH there were an open source cam software package that had
even reasonable capabilities. I use freecad a lot and it has grown by
leaps and bounds and it is quite capable today. It is not solidworks but
hey it is absolutely free and a 3d parametric modeler. You can watch some
youtube tutorials on it and see pretty quickly how powerful it is. They
are apparently working on a cam module and they already have an assembly
module that is somewhat integrated but the cam may be a ways off. That
would be an awesome package offering a lot of what you would need to do 3d
machining if they could get it going. I have not been on their forum for a
little while but it is also quite helpful when you have issues. Last I
recall there were certain operating systems that worked better than others
with it and they were working on the little bugs. It is not perfect but
when I first started using it I would get crashes a lot. Now that I am more
familiar with it and 3d modeling in general much of my initial problems
probably had to do with a lack of understanding of how to create 3d
geometry in the first place. The youtube and other source videos are very
helpful. I also found that while not the same solidworks tutorial videos
helped me to understand the workflow and tool use in the programs.
Solidworks is awesome and I wish I could afford it but for a free open
source package Freecad is quite capable really.
I have never tried pycam or heekscam or whatever so I cannot comment on
them. Never even knew there was a linux cam native package either so will
have to check that out. Blender is an amazing package that is far more
suited to animation and video gaming design than it ever is for engineering
or parts design and I was aware of their Cam package add on but no
experience with it. If it is anywhere near as polished as the blender
program itself it might be worth a look. Peace
Pete
On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 10:52 AM, Gene Heskett <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tuesday 21 October 2014 09:17:00 Allen did opine
> And Gene did reply:
> > I use Weber Systems "Synergy". (linux based)
> > http://webersys.com/
> > It's been around for years and is under represented.
> > Very little marketing.
> > You might look at it as well.
>
> In my case, it was also _very_ invasive. I had to format & reinstall to
> get rid of the last of the buy me nagging. I was not able to convince the
> 30 day demo to do anything constructive, nor to actually save my feeble
> attempts to learn it. The end result being that this example of elderly
> wet ram wasn't able to make any progress by saving snapshots & reloading
> them after sufficient coffee had been ingested.
>
> > Blender was pretty heavy, Pycam was too light, LCNC Native CAM I use at
> > times, never got around to Inkscape Gcode tools, I might take a look at
> > that myself as well.
>
> Those that I have used, worked well, but I've not explored it that deeply
> either.
>
> What is this "LCNC Native CAM" you refer to?
>
> > Have fun.
> >
> > On 10/21/2014 04:35 AM, linden wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > Do any of you use any of the 4 programs listed below? What other
> > > solutions are out there? I have come to the conclusion it would be
> > > nice to use some sort of tool rather than typing all the code out
> > > by hand. lol For little things its no big deal but I can see it
> > > getting old in a hurry. On an other note I have been playing with
> > > Freecad the last few weeks and am quite impressed with the part and
> > > part design tool bars any way the other features are still on my get
> > > to learn list.
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance,
> > >
> > > Linden
> > >
> > > Blender Cam add on for blender
> > > http://blendercam.blogspot.com/p/blender-cam-description.html
> > >
> > > Pycam and or Pycam ++
> > > http://sourceforge.net/p/pycam/pycam++/ci/master/tree/
> > >
> > > Linuxcnc Features Native CAM for linuxCNC
> > > https://github.com/cnc-club/linuxcnc-features
> > >
> > > Inkscape gcode tools plug in
> > > https://github.com/cnc-club/gcodetools
> > >
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>
> Cheers, Gene Heskett
> --
> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
> soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
> Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
> US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS
>
>
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--
Pete Matos
A and N Precision and Fabrication
Maryville, Tennessee
865-236-8996
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