subject:"\[Emc\-users\] CAM solutions"

Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-27 Thread Tom Easterday

For those interested in Gcode generation from Blender, the script has been 
updated and the link now works on the wiki page:
http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?GcodeGenerator

-Tom

On Mar 24, 2010, at 8:45 AM, Tom Easterday wrote:

 On Mar 23, 2010, at 12:43 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
 On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Sven Wesley wrote:
 2010/3/23 Bernhard Kubicek bernhard.kubi...@gmail.com
 
 it already exists.
 
 http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?GcodeGenerator
 
 however I never took the time to learn blender.
 greetings,
 bernhard
 
 Perfect, then there really _is_ a free option that can be used under Linux!
 
 If you get the download links to work, please advise how?
 
 I think you can find the latest here:  
 http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95964
 
 User mbf550 recently updated it.
 -Tom
 
 
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-24 Thread Tom Easterday

On Mar 23, 2010, at 12:43 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
 On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Sven Wesley wrote:
 2010/3/23 Bernhard Kubicek bernhard.kubi...@gmail.com
 
 it already exists.
 
 http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?GcodeGenerator
 
 however I never took the time to learn blender.
 greetings,
 bernhard
 
 Perfect, then there really _is_ a free option that can be used under Linux!
 
 If you get the download links to work, please advise how?

I think you can find the latest here:  
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95964

User mbf550 recently updated it.
-Tom


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proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-24 Thread Kenneth Lerman

I'm also an Alibre user. Some years ago I got the free version of Alibre 
Express. I found it to be just what I needed -- until they upgraded 
it. Then it stopped supporting creation of two dimensional drawings from 
3-D models.

I recently bought the current version ($97 I think) before they required 
that you buy the one year maintenance. It is an excellent product. The 
free CAM version doesn't support 2-D profiling. The only output mode it 
seems to support is a raster scan where it moves up and down on the Z axis.

It does support outputting DXF files. The free version of CAMBAM can 
input those files and generate just what I need. (I think that's the way 
I made the combination work -- it's been a while.)

Ken

On 3/23/2010 1:57 PM, Andy Pugh wrote:
 On 23 March 2010 18:28, Stephen Wille Padnosspad...@sover.net  wrote:

 Roland Jollivet wrote:

  
 I truly wish some company would bring out a 'real' CAD/CAM package at 1/5th
 of the price and blow the others out the water.


 Well, someone actually did.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be going
 very well for them.

 I bought CadMax Solid Masterhttp://www.cadmax.com  about 5 years ago.
 It's a real parametric solid modeling package, with a dynamic feature
 tree (much like SolidWorks), import/export of several formats (though
 unfortunately IGES costs extra), and fully associative sketches and
 prints.
  
 Alibre is cheaper still and supports IGES without extra expense. All
 it seems to lack is the ability to change dimensions in a drawing and
 have the model change to match (and I am not completely sure that the
 facility is missing, it might be I have not found it).

 I used AutoDesk Inventor all day, every day for a couple of years and
 I have to confess that there are not a great number of Inventor
 features missing from Alibre that I notice the lack of.

 The $197 / £89 version has a Demo version of the MecSoft CAM package
 available, and I believe that there is a way to unlock it into a very
 limited version (Alibre CAM Xpress) but I can't figure out how. The
 Demo version doesn't output G-Code.

 I would certainly say that it is worth trying the 30 Day free trial
 version of Alibre Design, it runs under VMWare on a Mac and probably
 also under Wine in Linux.
 After 30 days it reverts to the Express Version, but even that seems
 perfectly usable, the main limits being 5 parts per assembly and no
 Inventor/ProE import/export.



-- 
Kenneth Lerman
55 Main Street
Newtown, CT 06470
203-426-3769

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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-24 Thread Mike Payson

If you use Alibre  CamBam, you should the Alibre-CamBam Bridge at
http://www.spiked3.com/Bridge.html.

I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like a very useful addition.

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 6:13 AM, Kenneth Lerman
kenneth.ler...@se-ltd.com wrote:
 I'm also an Alibre user. Some years ago I got the free version of Alibre
 Express. I found it to be just what I needed -- until they upgraded
 it. Then it stopped supporting creation of two dimensional drawings from
 3-D models.

 I recently bought the current version ($97 I think) before they required
 that you buy the one year maintenance. It is an excellent product. The
 free CAM version doesn't support 2-D profiling. The only output mode it
 seems to support is a raster scan where it moves up and down on the Z axis.

 It does support outputting DXF files. The free version of CAMBAM can
 input those files and generate just what I need. (I think that's the way
 I made the combination work -- it's been a while.)

 Ken

 On 3/23/2010 1:57 PM, Andy Pugh wrote:
 On 23 March 2010 18:28, Stephen Wille Padnosspad...@sover.net  wrote:

 Roland Jollivet wrote:


 I truly wish some company would bring out a 'real' CAD/CAM package at 1/5th
 of the price and blow the others out the water.


 Well, someone actually did.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be going
 very well for them.

 I bought CadMax Solid Masterhttp://www.cadmax.com  about 5 years ago.
 It's a real parametric solid modeling package, with a dynamic feature
 tree (much like SolidWorks), import/export of several formats (though
 unfortunately IGES costs extra), and fully associative sketches and
 prints.

 Alibre is cheaper still and supports IGES without extra expense. All
 it seems to lack is the ability to change dimensions in a drawing and
 have the model change to match (and I am not completely sure that the
 facility is missing, it might be I have not found it).

 I used AutoDesk Inventor all day, every day for a couple of years and
 I have to confess that there are not a great number of Inventor
 features missing from Alibre that I notice the lack of.

 The $197 / £89 version has a Demo version of the MecSoft CAM package
 available, and I believe that there is a way to unlock it into a very
 limited version (Alibre CAM Xpress) but I can't figure out how. The
 Demo version doesn't output G-Code.

 I would certainly say that it is worth trying the 30 Day free trial
 version of Alibre Design, it runs under VMWare on a Mac and probably
 also under Wine in Linux.
 After 30 days it reverts to the Express Version, but even that seems
 perfectly usable, the main limits being 5 parts per assembly and no
 Inventor/ProE import/export.



 --
 Kenneth Lerman
 55 Main Street
 Newtown, CT 06470
 203-426-3769

 --
 Download Intel#174; 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
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread a

Hi
I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling software
where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it and it change
whole surface. It is interesting option.

No, actually the $5k version of Pro-E does include 2.5D CAM according
to the website. No idea how functional it is, but it's better than
nothing. Regardless, $5k is way out of my price range.

Rhino and MadCAM do look nice, when I get some spare time I plan on
taking a look at the demos. I just spent $200 on Alibre, and it's
pretty good, and certainly a good package for the price, but if Rhino
is nice enough I might consider switching.

On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 1:46 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:
Hi
I think Pro-E for $5K is only designer and will not generate any g-code.
Pro-e Manufacturing is total different and only Pro-E manyfacturing
generates g-code and it may cost around $15.K for Mill only.
i may be wrong, need call to PTC directly

There are Pro-E Mechanical for model stresses analysis and it is another
package.
I think good alternative for Pro-E is Rhino and Rhino is best for 3D
surface design. http://www.rhino3d.com/4/newfeatures.htm
Price for Rhino about $900.0 but if you instructor you can buy
commercial
Rhino for only $250.00.
Rhino has nurbe designer that none of other packages (Pro-e, Mastercam,
CATIA) have.
this what i use for CAM http://www.mecsoft.com/
All together was $1600.00
thanks
Aram

On Mar 21, 2010, at 8:41 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

Ries,

Thanks for the recommendation. At $5k, Pro-E is pretty spendy for my
needs, but it looks like they do offer a non-commercial version for
$250. Might be worth considering.

http://store.ptc.com/DRHM/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPageSiteID=ptcLocale=en_USEnv=BASEproductID=107381300

Mike

Mike,

PRO is indeed a bit pricy, bit not more proxy then let's say SW.
If it's part of your daily job making parts that look the same. They
can be build using the same PRO model.
PRO will generate new g-code files without you as a user muddling with
creating the tool paths,
assigning the correct bits and what not, it's almost on the press of a
button...

PRO-E can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but so far as a hobbiest I
have reasonable good experiences with it.

Ries

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Ries van Twisk e...@rvt.dds.nl
wrote:

On Mar 21, 2010, at 7:17 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

None of these are Open Source, and non work natively with Linux, but
since those requirements weren't mentioned in your question, only in
the notes you linked to, I'll ignore them in my response. :-)

Nobody seems to have mentioned CamBam. It has a bit of a learning
curve, but it has a ton of power for it's price.
http://www.cambam.info/

At work we use Visual Mill. It's very easy to use if you are coming
from a solid model, so it works great with Alibre CAD (which is only
$197) or another solid modeler (Rhino, Solidworks, Pro-E). You can
also work from DXFs with it, but it loses many of it's benefits if
you
do. Visual Mill starts at $1k, but it does have a pretty good
feature
set for the price. http://www.mecsoft.com/

I tried cambam but found the free version very buggy, the non free
version seems to be
much more solid, I would properly buy it if it was not that there
sales website is down..

Pro/E has a build in g-code generator, compatible with EMS, or at
least for the 3 axis what I have been using so far.
It's extremely powerful and modifies the G-code even after the model
has been changed, parametric to the power!!!
It's does have some learning curve though, but you benefit from if if
you make the same part in different configurations (sizes or family
tables).

Ries

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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Tom Easterday


On Mar 23, 2010, at 1:41 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:

 Hi
 I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling software
 where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it and it change
 whole surface. It is interesting option.

Blender is a powerful modeling app that also supports nurbs.  It has the added 
benefit of being free.  
(http://www.blender.org/)

-Tom

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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Sven Wesley



 On Mar 23, 2010, at 1:41 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:

  Hi
  I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling software
  where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it and it change
  whole surface. It is interesting option.

 Blender is a powerful modeling app that also supports nurbs.  It has the
 added benefit of being free.
 (http://www.blender.org/)

 -Tom


I wouldn't say only a 3D surface modeller. It is that, yes, but it's very
powerful and capable of more than free modelling.
I have Blender as well, not as user friendly though. If someone writes a
CAM-plugin for Blender then there will be something very very useful.

Regards,
Sven
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Bernhard Kubicek

it already exists.

http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?GcodeGenerator

however I never took the time to learn blender.
greetings,
bernhard


On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 1:24 PM, Sven Wesley svenne.d...@gmail.com wrote:

 
 
  On Mar 23, 2010, at 1:41 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:
 
   Hi
   I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling software
   where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it and it
 change
   whole surface. It is interesting option.
 
  Blender is a powerful modeling app that also supports nurbs.  It has the
  added benefit of being free.
  (http://www.blender.org/)
 
  -Tom
 
 
 I wouldn't say only a 3D surface modeller. It is that, yes, but it's very
 powerful and capable of more than free modelling.
 I have Blender as well, not as user friendly though. If someone writes a
 CAM-plugin for Blender then there will be something very very useful.

 Regards,
 Sven

 --
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 Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
 proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Sven Wesley

2010/3/23 Bernhard Kubicek bernhard.kubi...@gmail.com

 it already exists.

 http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?GcodeGenerator

 however I never took the time to learn blender.
 greetings,
 bernhard


Perfect, then there really _is_ a free option that can be used under Linux!
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Ries van Twisk


On Mar 23, 2010, at 7:24 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:



 On Mar 23, 2010, at 1:41 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:

 Hi
 I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling  
 software
 where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it and it  
 change
 whole surface. It is interesting option.

Do you guys use any of the Parametric plugins for Rhino?
Honestly I don't see why a non parametric 3D modeler is any useful in  
the industry
where you need to make more then just a part, I am not talking about  
people doing this for a hobby or the one-offs



 Blender is a powerful modeling app that also supports nurbs.  It  
 has the
 added benefit of being free.
 (http://www.blender.org/)

 -Tom


 I wouldn't say only a 3D surface modeller. It is that, yes, but  
 it's very
 powerful and capable of more than free modelling.
 I have Blender as well, not as user friendly though. If someone  
 writes a
 CAM-plugin for Blender then there will be something very very useful.



I tried using blender, but could never really be productive on it,
it might have something to do with the way I think, because I have seen
some awesome project done with it, most non-mechanical though...

What I need in a design tool is parametric, sketcher in 3D and 2D,
associative and that my g-code get's updated when my model is changed,
or that my 2D drawings get updated when my 3D model changes, or the  
other way around even.

I know we all say that the software is expensive, and it is! But given  
you might use
it for let's say 3 years then even for a $10K software tool you pay  
277 a month,
that's less then the daily rate for a single guy. If you make anything
on a professional level, then it's worth the investment and it's  
better to use something
that has some learning curve, but will save you time in the long run,
then use software that is much cheaper, but forces you to repeat  
yourself.

Ries


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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Sven Wesley

2010/3/23 Ries van Twisk e...@rvt.dds.nl


 I tried using blender, but could never really be productive on it,
 it might have something to do with the way I think, because I have seen
 some awesome project done with it, most non-mechanical though...

 What I need in a design tool is parametric, sketcher in 3D and 2D,
 associative and that my g-code get's updated when my model is changed,
 or that my 2D drawings get updated when my 3D model changes, or the
 other way around even.

 I know we all say that the software is expensive, and it is! But given
 you might use
 it for let's say 3 years then even for a $10K software tool you pay
 277 a month,
 that's less then the daily rate for a single guy. If you make anything
 on a professional level, then it's worth the investment and it's
 better to use something
 that has some learning curve, but will save you time in the long run,
 then use software that is much cheaper, but forces you to repeat
 yourself.

 Ries


As I wrote before, I use Rhino and the MadCam-plugin all the time nowadays
and I do use it in a parametric way.
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Karl Schmidt

 someone wrote
 Purchasing Synergy is simple. Just contact Weber Systems, let them know
 you are interested, and our applications engineers will take it from
 there.
 
 They will make sure that you get exactly the kind of installation,
 setup, support package, and software that is best for you and your
 company.
 
 At what price though?

Actually, I had the same reaction and asked why there was no posted price and 
said it made me 
distrustful and I said something to the effect of a Maxium I once wrote:

Merchandise offered without price,
is sure to cost more than it is worth.  -kps

His reply is that if he posts a price- the next day BobCAD sets a price $1 less 
etc.
Weber Systems is wrong in their philosophy(I'm an objectivistg). There is a 
move all over the 
place to charge different people different amounts - even Amazon.com is doing 
this - they look at 
what books you bought in the past - how many you did not buy and then set a 
price just for you. The 
same goods at discount chain stores will have different prices in different 
neighbor hoods. In the 
end these practices anger customers - make the customers feel they were taken 
and comes off as 
sleazy - but for right now the public hasn't caught on.

So the bottom line is you can probably get a very good price if you haggle with 
Weber Systems - they 
just don't want the public to know the street price.

BobCAD on the other hand, was using marketing practices that smell of 
Scientology and there seems to 
be a consensus that the software stinks.

All these software vendors seem to take this approach: get people in very cheap 
- the real 
investment is learning the software - once you have that sunk cost you are 
unlikely to change and 
you will pay dearly for new features. I once had a circuit-board CAD package - 
paid yearly support 
so I would get all the new features - they came out with new features, but 
pretended it was a new 
program - if I wanted to upgrade I would have to fork out thousands more.

The best thing about Synergy is it was originally written for unix and now 
Linux so there is no 
problem running it on the same box as EMC.

They could own the market if they went open-source and sold support. A lot of 
CAD/CAM programs end 
up pirated because the cost is really too high and people feel they have been 
screwed. They don't 
get any money from the ones that steal the software so the price gets even 
higher - if it was open 
and they were selling support, there is a different money stream, chances to 
broker design services 
- sell related equipment with support site adds.

In the end, most of these closed source packages will either become incredibly 
specialized or  die - 
open source projects are advancing - in the circuit board world there is now 
kicad - and it is now 
better than many of the commercial packages.




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

Postmodernism: nihilism in drag. -kps



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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Gene Heskett

On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Bernhard Kubicek wrote:
it already exists.

http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?GcodeGenerator

Most appetizing, and would prompt me to learn blender.  Unforch, it appears 
all the download links are 404 to FF3.6.2.

Other links seem to be good, except what little German I did know is 55 years 
rusty.  Old old Telefunken schematics I could get around in, but that is 
almost stretching the point.

however I never took the time to learn blender.
greetings,
bernhard

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 1:24 PM, Sven Wesley svenne.d...@gmail.com wrote:
  On Mar 23, 2010, at 1:41 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:
   Hi
   I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling
   software where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it
   and it

 change

   whole surface. It is interesting option.
 
  Blender is a powerful modeling app that also supports nurbs.  It has
  the added benefit of being free.
  (http://www.blender.org/)
 
  -Tom

 I wouldn't say only a 3D surface modeller. It is that, yes, but it's
 very powerful and capable of more than free modelling.
 I have Blender as well, not as user friendly though. If someone writes a
 CAM-plugin for Blender then there will be something very very useful.

 Regards,
 Sven

 -
- Download Intel#174; 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
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She asked me, What's your sign?
I blinked and answered Neon,
I thought I'd blow her mind...

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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Gene Heskett

On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Sven Wesley wrote:
2010/3/23 Bernhard Kubicek bernhard.kubi...@gmail.com

 it already exists.

 http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?GcodeGenerator

 however I never took the time to learn blender.
 greetings,
 bernhard

Perfect, then there really _is_ a free option that can be used under Linux!

If you get the download links to work, please advise how?

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Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is
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-- George Bernard Shaw

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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Gene Heskett

On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Ries van Twisk wrote:
On Mar 23, 2010, at 7:24 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 1:41 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:
 Hi
 I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling
 software
 where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it and it
 change
 whole surface. It is interesting option.

Do you guys use any of the Parametric plugins for Rhino?
Honestly I don't see why a non parametric 3D modeler is any useful in
the industry
where you need to make more then just a part, I am not talking about
people doing this for a hobby or the one-offs

And that's me.  No way in hell can I justify the cost of something like 
rhino, for one quick piece of wood or metal.  I could easily empty the SS 
replenished bank account if I bought all the stuff that has been mentioned 
here.

 Blender is a powerful modeling app that also supports nurbs.  It
 has the
 added benefit of being free.
 (http://www.blender.org/)

But with a steep learning curve, at least for me.

 -Tom

 I wouldn't say only a 3D surface modeller. It is that, yes, but
 it's very
 powerful and capable of more than free modelling.
 I have Blender as well, not as user friendly though. If someone
 writes a
 CAM-plugin for Blender then there will be something very very useful.

I tried using blender, but could never really be productive on it,
it might have something to do with the way I think, because I have seen
some awesome project done with it, most non-mechanical though...

What I need in a design tool is parametric, sketcher in 3D and 2D,
associative and that my g-code get's updated when my model is changed,
or that my 2D drawings get updated when my 3D model changes, or the
other way around even.

I know we all say that the software is expensive, and it is! But given
you might use
it for let's say 3 years then even for a $10K software tool you pay
277 a month,
that's less then the daily rate for a single guy. If you make anything
on a professional level, then it's worth the investment and it's
better to use something
that has some learning curve, but will save you time in the long run,
then use software that is much cheaper, but forces you to repeat
yourself.

Ries


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Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Ries van Twisk


On Mar 23, 2010, at 11:47 AM, Gene Heskett wrote:

 On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Ries van Twisk wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 7:24 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 1:41 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:
 Hi
 I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling
 software
 where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it and it
 change
 whole surface. It is interesting option.

 Do you guys use any of the Parametric plugins for Rhino?
 Honestly I don't see why a non parametric 3D modeler is any useful in
 the industry
 where you need to make more then just a part, I am not talking about
 people doing this for a hobby or the one-offs

 And that's me.  No way in hell can I justify the cost of something  
 like
 rhino, for one quick piece of wood or metal.  I could easily empty  
 the SS
 replenished bank account if I bought all the stuff that has been  
 mentioned
 here.


in that case the sort of business you work on doesn't even require it,
no worries, it's really normal to use simple CAD/CAM pages.
I see to much people buying autocad, while they also could
have been buying qCAD or any other sub 100USD 2D CAD package.
they Just pay a very file conversion package :)

Ries


 Blender is a powerful modeling app that also supports nurbs.  It
 has the
 added benefit of being free.
 (http://www.blender.org/)

 But with a steep learning curve, at least for me.







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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Gene Heskett

On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Ries van Twisk wrote:
On Mar 23, 2010, at 11:47 AM, Gene Heskett wrote:
 On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Ries van Twisk wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 7:24 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 1:41 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:
 Hi
 I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling
 software
 where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it and it
 change
 whole surface. It is interesting option.

 Do you guys use any of the Parametric plugins for Rhino?
 Honestly I don't see why a non parametric 3D modeler is any useful in
 the industry
 where you need to make more then just a part, I am not talking about
 people doing this for a hobby or the one-offs

 And that's me.  No way in hell can I justify the cost of something
 like
 rhino, for one quick piece of wood or metal.  I could easily empty
 the SS
 replenished bank account if I bought all the stuff that has been
 mentioned
 here.

in that case the sort of business you work on doesn't even require it,
no worries, it's really normal to use simple CAD/CAM pages.
I see to much people buying autocad, while they also could
have been buying qCAD or any other sub 100USD 2D CAD package.
they Just pay a very file conversion package :)

Ries

I have had qCAD's freebie installed several times, but I have yet to see it 
has an output format I can use or convert to use.  Probably no mistake...

Thanks Ries.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order.
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

Well hello there Charlie Brown, you blockhead.
-- Lucy Van Pelt

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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Ries van Twisk


On Mar 23, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:

 On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Ries van Twisk wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 11:47 AM, Gene Heskett wrote:
 On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Ries van Twisk wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 7:24 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 1:41 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:
 Hi
 I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling
 software
 where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it  
 and it
 change
 whole surface. It is interesting option.

 Do you guys use any of the Parametric plugins for Rhino?
 Honestly I don't see why a non parametric 3D modeler is any  
 useful in
 the industry
 where you need to make more then just a part, I am not talking  
 about
 people doing this for a hobby or the one-offs

 And that's me.  No way in hell can I justify the cost of something
 like
 rhino, for one quick piece of wood or metal.  I could easily empty
 the SS
 replenished bank account if I bought all the stuff that has been
 mentioned
 here.

 in that case the sort of business you work on doesn't even require  
 it,
 no worries, it's really normal to use simple CAD/CAM pages.
 I see to much people buying autocad, while they also could
 have been buying qCAD or any other sub 100USD 2D CAD package.
 they Just pay a very file conversion package :)

 Ries

 I have had qCAD's freebie installed several times, but I have yet to  
 see it
 has an output format I can use or convert to use.  Probably no  
 mistake...

 Thanks Ries.



The payed version is a bit better on a usability level, but I could  
simply
save as a DXF and use it with one of the free and some closed source  
CAM solutions.

Ries




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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Bernhard Kubicek

camexpert is the advanced qcad, where you can export gcode. But it does
not support cutter radius compensation, nor pocketing by itself.
There is some optimization of paths;
Manually reordering of things is not working well for me.


On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 6:20 PM, Gene Heskett gene.hesk...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Ries van Twisk wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 11:47 AM, Gene Heskett wrote:
  On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Ries van Twisk wrote:
  On Mar 23, 2010, at 7:24 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:
  On Mar 23, 2010, at 1:41 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:
  Hi
  I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling
  software
  where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it and it
  change
  whole surface. It is interesting option.
 
  Do you guys use any of the Parametric plugins for Rhino?
  Honestly I don't see why a non parametric 3D modeler is any useful in
  the industry
  where you need to make more then just a part, I am not talking about
  people doing this for a hobby or the one-offs
 
  And that's me.  No way in hell can I justify the cost of something
  like
  rhino, for one quick piece of wood or metal.  I could easily empty
  the SS
  replenished bank account if I bought all the stuff that has been
  mentioned
  here.
 
 in that case the sort of business you work on doesn't even require it,
 no worries, it's really normal to use simple CAD/CAM pages.
 I see to much people buying autocad, while they also could
 have been buying qCAD or any other sub 100USD 2D CAD package.
 they Just pay a very file conversion package :)
 
 Ries
 
 I have had qCAD's freebie installed several times, but I have yet to see it
 has an output format I can use or convert to use.  Probably no mistake...

 Thanks Ries.

 --
 Cheers, Gene
 There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order.
 -Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 Well hello there Charlie Brown, you blockhead.
 -- Lucy Van Pelt


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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Roland Jollivet

Gotta agree. Pricing is one of my pet banes. Try find the price of SW,
Autocad or similar package on the net. They want all sorts of details first.
Crikey, one can drive past showrooms all day seeing the price of cars which
start at the order of 3 x as much. So why the secret.

I truly wish some company would bring out a 'real' CAD/CAM package at 1/5th
of the price and blow the others out the water.

Roland


On 23 March 2010 18:07, Karl Schmidt k...@xtronics.com wrote:

  someone wrote
  Purchasing Synergy is simple. Just contact Weber Systems, let them know
  you are interested, and our applications engineers will take it from
  there.
 
  They will make sure that you get exactly the kind of installation,
  setup, support package, and software that is best for you and your
  company.
 
  At what price though?

 Actually, I had the same reaction and asked why there was no posted price
 and said it made me
 distrustful and I said something to the effect of a Maxium I once wrote:

 Merchandise offered without price,
 is sure to cost more than it is worth.  -kps

 His reply is that if he posts a price- the next day BobCAD sets a price $1
 less etc.
 Weber Systems is wrong in their philosophy(I'm an objectivistg). There is
 a move all over the
 place to charge different people different amounts - even Amazon.com is
 doing this - they look at
 what books you bought in the past - how many you did not buy and then set a
 price just for you. The
 same goods at discount chain stores will have different prices in different
 neighbor hoods. In the
 end these practices anger customers - make the customers feel they were
 taken and comes off as
 sleazy - but for right now the public hasn't caught on.

 So the bottom line is you can probably get a very good price if you haggle
 with Weber Systems - they
 just don't want the public to know the street price.

 BobCAD on the other hand, was using marketing practices that smell of
 Scientology and there seems to
 be a consensus that the software stinks.

 All these software vendors seem to take this approach: get people in very
 cheap - the real
 investment is learning the software - once you have that sunk cost you are
 unlikely to change and
 you will pay dearly for new features. I once had a circuit-board CAD
 package - paid yearly support
 so I would get all the new features - they came out with new features, but
 pretended it was a new
 program - if I wanted to upgrade I would have to fork out thousands more.

 The best thing about Synergy is it was originally written for unix and now
 Linux so there is no
 problem running it on the same box as EMC.

 They could own the market if they went open-source and sold support. A lot
 of CAD/CAM programs end
 up pirated because the cost is really too high and people feel they have
 been screwed. They don't
 get any money from the ones that steal the software so the price gets even
 higher - if it was open
 and they were selling support, there is a different money stream, chances
 to broker design services
 - sell related equipment with support site adds.

 In the end, most of these closed source packages will either become
 incredibly specialized or  die -
 open source projects are advancing - in the circuit board world there is
 now kicad - and it is now
 better than many of the commercial packages.




 
 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

 Postmodernism: nihilism in drag. -kps


 


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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Andy Pugh

On 23 March 2010 18:28, Stephen Wille Padnos spad...@sover.net wrote:

 Roland Jollivet wrote:

 I truly wish some company would bring out a 'real' CAD/CAM package at 1/5th
 of the price and blow the others out the water.

 Well, someone actually did.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be going
 very well for them.

 I bought CadMax Solid Master http://www.cadmax.com about 5 years ago.
 It's a real parametric solid modeling package, with a dynamic feature
 tree (much like SolidWorks), import/export of several formats (though
 unfortunately IGES costs extra), and fully associative sketches and
 prints.

Alibre is cheaper still and supports IGES without extra expense. All
it seems to lack is the ability to change dimensions in a drawing and
have the model change to match (and I am not completely sure that the
facility is missing, it might be I have not found it).

I used AutoDesk Inventor all day, every day for a couple of years and
I have to confess that there are not a great number of Inventor
features missing from Alibre that I notice the lack of.

The $197 / £89 version has a Demo version of the MecSoft CAM package
available, and I believe that there is a way to unlock it into a very
limited version (Alibre CAM Xpress) but I can't figure out how. The
Demo version doesn't output G-Code.

I would certainly say that it is worth trying the 30 Day free trial
version of Alibre Design, it runs under VMWare on a Mac and probably
also under Wine in Linux.
After 30 days it reverts to the Express Version, but even that seems
perfectly usable, the main limits being 5 parts per assembly and no
Inventor/ProE import/export.

-- 
atp

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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Gene Heskett

On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Ries van Twisk wrote:
On Mar 23, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
 On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Ries van Twisk wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 11:47 AM, Gene Heskett wrote:
 On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Ries van Twisk wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 7:24 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 1:41 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:
 Hi
 I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling
 software
 where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it
 and it
 change
 whole surface. It is interesting option.

 Do you guys use any of the Parametric plugins for Rhino?
 Honestly I don't see why a non parametric 3D modeler is any
 useful in
 the industry
 where you need to make more then just a part, I am not talking
 about
 people doing this for a hobby or the one-offs

 And that's me.  No way in hell can I justify the cost of something
 like
 rhino, for one quick piece of wood or metal.  I could easily empty
 the SS
 replenished bank account if I bought all the stuff that has been
 mentioned
 here.

 in that case the sort of business you work on doesn't even require
 it,
 no worries, it's really normal to use simple CAD/CAM pages.
 I see to much people buying autocad, while they also could
 have been buying qCAD or any other sub 100USD 2D CAD package.
 they Just pay a very file conversion package :)

 Ries

 I have had qCAD's freebie installed several times, but I have yet to
 see it
 has an output format I can use or convert to use.  Probably no
 mistake...

 Thanks Ries.

The payed version is a bit better on a usability level, but I could
simply
save as a DXF and use it with one of the free and some closed source
CAM solutions.

Ries

I couldn't find a DXF convertor that actually made good code.  And I'd still 
like to try that bit of python that a link to the wiki about was posted 
earlier today.

Thanks Ries.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order.
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have
schizophrenia.
-- Thomas Szasz

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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread dave

On Tue, 2010-03-23 at 12:47 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
 On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Ries van Twisk wrote:
 On Mar 23, 2010, at 7:24 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:
  On Mar 23, 2010, at 1:41 AM, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:
  Hi
  I bought Rhino and importantly it is only 3D surface modeling
  software
  where nurbs is a part. NURBS let you grab point and drag it and it
  change
  whole surface. It is interesting option.
 
 Do you guys use any of the Parametric plugins for Rhino?
 Honestly I don't see why a non parametric 3D modeler is any useful in
 the industry
 where you need to make more then just a part, I am not talking about
 people doing this for a hobby or the one-offs
 
 And that's me.  No way in hell can I justify the cost of something like 
 rhino, for one quick piece of wood or metal.  I could easily empty the SS 
 replenished bank account if I bought all the stuff that has been mentioned 
 here.
 
  Blender is a powerful modeling app that also supports nurbs.  It
  has the
  added benefit of being free.
  (http://www.blender.org/)
 
 But with a steep learning curve, at least for me.
 
  -Tom
 
  I wouldn't say only a 3D surface modeller. It is that, yes, but
  it's very
  powerful and capable of more than free modelling.
  I have Blender as well, not as user friendly though. If someone
  writes a
  CAM-plugin for Blender then there will be something very very useful.
 
 I tried using blender, but could never really be productive on it,
 it might have something to do with the way I think, because I have seen
 some awesome project done with it, most non-mechanical though...
 
 What I need in a design tool is parametric, sketcher in 3D and 2D,
 associative and that my g-code get's updated when my model is changed,
 or that my 2D drawings get updated when my 3D model changes, or the
 other way around even.
 
 I know we all say that the software is expensive, and it is! But given
 you might use
 it for let's say 3 years then even for a $10K software tool you pay
 277 a month,
 that's less then the daily rate for a single guy. If you make anything
 on a professional level, then it's worth the investment and it's
 better to use something
 that has some learning curve, but will save you time in the long run,
 then use software that is much cheaper, but forces you to repeat
 yourself.
 
 Ries


Unless one is a a really serious hobbyist or well heeled a cad/cam
package is a real investment. 

The only part of Synergy that is free is the 2.5D drawing. If you want
2.5D CAM then cough up $250. 
If you want wire-frame then add more money. 
If you want 3D (parasolids) add more money. 

Believe me, weber systems does not make their money off of cad/cam
sales; their real money made off support and custom work. 

But where else can you get 2.5 D plus wire-frame plus solids plus
variational (for a family of parts) plus lathe and edm including CAM for
something about 1.2K$. Now that assumes you can make it run without
support after the initial support period. 

I exports its native .syn files plus Iges and I think both dxf and dwg
although they may only import dxf and dwg. 

Come on Bob speak up here. 

Compare that with other 3D packages + CAM and it looks pretty good. 

Dave

 


 
 
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Ries van Twisk


On Mar 23, 2010, at 2:01 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:

 snip
 Thanks Ries.

 The payed version is a bit better on a usability level, but I could
 simply
 save as a DXF and use it with one of the free and some closed source
 CAM solutions.

 Ries

 I couldn't find a DXF convertor that actually made good code.  And  
 I'd still
 like to try that bit of python that a link to the wiki about was  
 posted
 earlier today.

 Thanks Ries.





I have used that python script and I frequently import DXF into it.
Be aware though, it's very simple but it suited my needs for some of  
the stuff I was doing.

With any CAD/CAM solution, it's very important to look and your needs
and capabilities and only then find the proper solution.

I like to play with Pro/E and have been in a +100K euro traject to  
select a CAD/CAM solution,
but I frequently grab to qCad and that python script to quickly create  
something :)
Currently it's mostly a hobby for me though..

That CAM/CAD traject I did within the company had a ROI within 18Months,
the part where where making where fairly complex and where slighñy  
different for each build request,
mostly sizer and shape changed, but number of features was the same.
With AutoCAD people had to work for weeks to create the same part over  
and over again to spec,
with the parametric solution it was almost a matter of filling in some  
number and press a button.
We could bring down the design of that part back from 3 weeks to  
around 1-2 days.

Ries






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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Gene Heskett

On Tuesday 23 March 2010, Bernhard Kubicek wrote:
camexpert is the advanced qcad, where you can export gcode. But it does
not support cutter radius compensation, nor pocketing by itself.
There is some optimization of paths;
Manually reordering of things is not working well for me.

And I tend to be fond of subroutines, but have trouble recognizing that 
something just might be better that way when I am trying to shrink and 
optimize my own stuff.  One of the things that would be handy for me could be 
done as a subroutine, that of carving the access well in the north side (I'm 
right handed) of a gunstock butt section that goes with the 'thumbhole 
style.  That is basically a cone shape, laid well over on its side, but for 
artistic purposes and hand comfort, the 'lower' edge needs to be pulled down 
near the pistol grip, but maintain the straight line to the rear of the 
cutout too, the idea being that when the hand is in the grip, the back of the 
pistol should be pretty well centered on a line drawn thru the wrist back to 
the 2 bones in the arm, therefore transferring as much of the arms mass into 
the stock as practical.  This effect can also have a quite noticeable effect 
on the perceived recoil with the larger calibers.  The improved grip also 
turns my standing up with no support grouping at 100 meters from a pattern 
about 1/3 meter across, to one about 7 or 8 cm across.  That will put venison 
in the freezer. ;-)

I can deduce the shape of the curve on both ends, and could set it in a 
table, but emc doesn't have enough vars to hold the whole double set of xyz 
tables.  Also, x needs to be dynamically adjusted so we don't waste a lot of 
time cutting air, or conversely, keeping the chuck itself out of the wood 
when approaching the pistol grip.  Without a really long spindle nose, and a 
tilting post or spindle, reaching it all is a drill a hole  sand to shape 
operation, something I'd love to be able to do, and could if I ever built a 
gantry machine with a 54 x, 12 y  z and a spindle I can rotate on the y 
axis and an A table on the x axis, total of 5 axis.  I suspect that some of 
the ultra modern looking bits of laminated wood I see on the net were carved 
with such a machine.  At that point I'll be looking for today's version of 
the 50 year old BD die grinder #8 for a spindle.  Nice lonngg nose 
shank, you could reach all the way up a flathead ford blocks exhaust port and 
polish around the exhaust valve stems with it.

I actually think I could write some patterns that would sell in wood if I had 
the machine, cuz I already know what looks good. Or think I do.  Every time I 
drag out the one I'm working on at the moment, it gets the Ooohs and Ahhhs 
that makes me feel good.  Too bad we can't post pix here.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order.
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The less time planning, the more time programming.

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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Viesturs Lācis

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.

 

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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-23 Thread Przemek Klosowski

I just got an unsolicited offer from VX for $95 Innovator Lite
http://vxstore.vx.com/product/vx-innovator-lite-48.cfm
(you have to ask them for a promotion code, off the regular price $495)

Is anyone familiar with this one? Is it any good? What are the
limitations of the Lite version?

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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-22 Thread a

Hi
I think Pro-E for $5K is only designer and will not generate any g-code.
Pro-e Manufacturing is total different and only Pro-E manyfacturing
generates g-code and it may cost around $15.K for Mill only.
i may be wrong, need call to PTC directly

There are Pro-E Mechanical for model stresses analysis and it is another
package.
I think good alternative for Pro-E is Rhino and Rhino is best for 3D
surface design. http://www.rhino3d.com/4/newfeatures.htm
Price for Rhino about $900.0 but if you instructor you can buy commercial
Rhino for only $250.00.
Rhino has nurbe designer that none of other packages (Pro-e, Mastercam,
CATIA) have.
this what i use for CAM http://www.mecsoft.com/
All together was $1600.00
thanks
Aram

On Mar 21, 2010, at 8:41 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

Ries,

Thanks for the recommendation. At $5k, Pro-E is pretty spendy for my
needs, but it looks like they do offer a non-commercial version for
$250. Might be worth considering.

http://store.ptc.com/DRHM/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPageSiteID=ptcLocale=en_USEnv=BASEproductID=107381300

Mike

Mike,

PRO-E can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but so far as a hobbiest I
have reasonable good experiences with it.

Ries

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Ries van Twisk e...@rvt.dds.nl
wrote:

On Mar 21, 2010, at 7:17 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

None of these are Open Source, and non work natively with Linux, but
since those requirements weren't mentioned in your question, only in
the notes you linked to, I'll ignore them in my response. :-)

Nobody seems to have mentioned CamBam. It has a bit of a learning
curve, but it has a ton of power for it's price.
http://www.cambam.info/

I tried cambam but found the free version very buggy, the non free
version seems to be
much more solid, I would properly buy it if it was not that there
sales website is down..

Ries

Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-22 Thread Roland Jollivet

And of course, Freemill at Mecsoft... (maybe already mentioned)

http://www.mecsoft.com/freemill.shtml

Unless you are doing work that has specific requirements, aim for CAD
products that generate, and CAM that import .stl files. They are simple
triangle files, versatile, and you can usually increase the resolution
during generation to well beyond the resolution of your milling machine.

Apparently .stl is frowned on in the 'real world' as a machining source, but
I think it's great. Converting parasolids between packages often requires a
myriad of variables to be set up, and don't be surprised if you find parts
of your assembly 'off the page'.

Roland

On 22 March 2010 10:46, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:

There are Pro-E Mechanical for model stresses analysis and it is another
package.
I think good alternative for Pro-E is Rhino and Rhino is best for 3D
surface design. http://www.rhino3d.com/4/newfeatures.htm
Price for Rhino about $900.0 but if you instructor you can buy commercial
Rhino for only $250.00.
Rhino has nurbe designer that none of other packages (Pro-e, Mastercam,
CATIA) have.
this what i use for CAM http://www.mecsoft.com/
All together was $1600.00
thanks
Aram

On Mar 21, 2010, at 8:41 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

Ries,

Thanks for the recommendation. At $5k, Pro-E is pretty spendy for my
needs, but it looks like they do offer a non-commercial version for
$250. Might be worth considering.

http://store.ptc.com/DRHM/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPageSiteID=ptcLocale=en_USEnv=BASEproductID=107381300

Mike

Mike,

PRO-E can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but so far as a hobbiest I
have reasonable good experiences with it.

Ries

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Ries van Twisk e...@rvt.dds.nl
wrote:

On Mar 21, 2010, at 7:17 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

None of these are Open Source, and non work natively with Linux, but
since those requirements weren't mentioned in your question, only in
the notes you linked to, I'll ignore them in my response. :-)

Nobody seems to have mentioned CamBam. It has a bit of a learning
curve, but it has a ton of power for it's price.
http://www.cambam.info/

I tried cambam but found the free version very buggy, the non free
version seems to be
much more solid, I would properly buy it if it was not that there
sales website is down..

Ries

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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-22 Thread Mike Payson

No, actually the $5k version of Pro-E does include 2.5D CAM according
to the website. No idea how functional it is, but it's better than
nothing. Regardless, $5k is way out of my price range.

There are Pro-E Mechanical for model stresses analysis and it is another
package.
I think good alternative for Pro-E is Rhino and Rhino is best for 3D
surface design. http://www.rhino3d.com/4/newfeatures.htm
Price for Rhino about $900.0 but if you instructor you can buy commercial
Rhino for only $250.00.
Rhino has nurbe designer that none of other packages (Pro-e, Mastercam,
CATIA) have.
this what i use for CAM http://www.mecsoft.com/
All together was $1600.00
thanks
Aram

On Mar 21, 2010, at 8:41 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

Ries,

Thanks for the recommendation. At $5k, Pro-E is pretty spendy for my
needs, but it looks like they do offer a non-commercial version for
$250. Might be worth considering.

http://store.ptc.com/DRHM/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPageSiteID=ptcLocale=en_USEnv=BASEproductID=107381300

Mike

Mike,

PRO-E can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but so far as a hobbiest I
have reasonable good experiences with it.

Ries

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Ries van Twisk e...@rvt.dds.nl
wrote:

On Mar 21, 2010, at 7:17 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

None of these are Open Source, and non work natively with Linux, but
since those requirements weren't mentioned in your question, only in
the notes you linked to, I'll ignore them in my response. :-)

Nobody seems to have mentioned CamBam. It has a bit of a learning
curve, but it has a ton of power for it's price.
http://www.cambam.info/

I tried cambam but found the free version very buggy, the non free
version seems to be
much more solid, I would properly buy it if it was not that there
sales website is down..

Ries

Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-22 Thread Andy Pugh

On 22 March 2010 00:17, Mike Payson mikepay...@gmail.com wrote:

  Alibre CAD (which is only $197)

Alibre CAD was $97 unsupported  last time I looked, or £89 from the UK
distributor. But when I looked again yesterday the US price was $197
with 1 year support and included and no sign of an option to skip the
support. So I bought the UK version. (As my work IP address looks to
be in the US (19.X.X.X) I could probably have bought online from the
US)

The reason I bought in a hurry was that currently Alibre comes with
the Autodesk Inventor and Solidworks import/export options included,
but as of 1st April this will no longer be the case.

I have used Alibre CAM in demo mode and it looks like it integrates
well with the CAD, but I have had a lot more success using SheetCAM
for my 2.5D stuff.

As has been pointed out, none are free or Linux native, but I run them
all in VMWare on my Mac anyway.

-- 
atp

--
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-22 Thread Florian Rist

Hi Karl 

 What are people using to generate tool paths?

I'd like to and another recommendation (as fare as I can see it has not 
been mentioned, jet): SprutCAM but the RussianCompany Sprut Technologies:

http://www.sprutcam.com

There website does not work with Firefox :-( but SprutCAM is really good 
and not expensive (free for educational use). There's a free trial 
version to download and it already includes a lot of postprocessors. I 
use it to generate the tool path for y 3+1 axes mill for about ten years 
now and really like it. I also work with HyperMill (way to expensive) for 
5 axes tool path generation. But we will probably replace HyperMill by 
the CAM module integrated into Catia v5 (very expensive as long as you 
don´t use it for education only).

See you
Florian
-- 
Vienna University of Technology, 3D Design and Modeling E264/2,
Dipl.-Ing. Florian Rist, Karlsplatz 13 E264/2, A-1040 Vienna, Austria,
Phone +43-1-58801-26427, Fax +43-1-58801-26490, fr...@fs.tum.de, 
WWW http://e2642.kunst.tuwien.ac.at/ Ö: UID ATU37675002, DVR 0005886


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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-22 Thread Roland Jollivet

To answer my own email, I just looked at Freemill and it's almost a total
waste of time. You can't do more than a single pass, and now it keeps on
crashing... Did'nt seem to allow me to use mm/min feed either, even though
the part was selected as metric.

I used Sprutcam a few years ago too, and it was great as a trial, but the
main problem with it was the intelligence it applied on successive passes.
If you had a 2mm cavity somewhere on the part, and did a 3mm roughing pass,
and then a 1mm finishing pass, it would simply dig into the 2mm cavity
without appreciating all the uncut material there. One would have to use
laborious work-arounds, usually after breaking the bit.

Regards
Roland

On 22 March 2010 11:14, Roland Jollivet roland.jolli...@gmail.com wrote:

And of course, Freemill at Mecsoft... (maybe already mentioned)

http://www.mecsoft.com/freemill.shtml

Apparently .stl is frowned on in the 'real world' as a machining source,
but I think it's great. Converting parasolids between packages often
requires a myriad of variables to be set up, and don't be surprised if you
find parts of your assembly 'off the page'.

Roland

On 22 March 2010 10:46, a...@conceptmachinery.com wrote:

There are Pro-E Mechanical for model stresses analysis and it is another
package.
I think good alternative for Pro-E is Rhino and Rhino is best for 3D
surface design. http://www.rhino3d.com/4/newfeatures.htm
Price for Rhino about $900.0 but if you instructor you can buy commercial
Rhino for only $250.00.
Rhino has nurbe designer that none of other packages (Pro-e, Mastercam,
CATIA) have.
this what i use for CAM http://www.mecsoft.com/
All together was $1600.00
thanks
Aram

On Mar 21, 2010, at 8:41 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

Ries,

Thanks for the recommendation. At $5k, Pro-E is pretty spendy for my
needs, but it looks like they do offer a non-commercial version for
$250. Might be worth considering.

http://store.ptc.com/DRHM/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPageSiteID=ptcLocale=en_USEnv=BASEproductID=107381300

Mike

Mike,

PRO-E can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but so far as a hobbiest I
have reasonable good experiences with it.

Ries

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Ries van Twisk e...@rvt.dds.nl
wrote:

On Mar 21, 2010, at 7:17 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

None of these are Open Source, and non work natively with Linux, but
since those requirements weren't mentioned in your question, only in
the notes you linked to, I'll ignore them in my response. :-)

Nobody seems to have mentioned CamBam. It has a bit of a learning
curve, but it has a ton of power for it's price.
http://www.cambam.info/

I tried cambam but found the free version very buggy, the non free
version seems to be
much more solid, I would properly buy it if it was not that there
sales website is down..

Ries

Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-22 Thread Karl Schmidt

Thanks for the info - I've added it to :

http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/CAD_CAM#Linux_friendly_CAD_CAM_packages for 
my reference, feel 
free to add...

The little experience with bobCAD I know about convinced me to look for 
something else - it would 
make stupid indexing moves - no way to set it up to move Z last as a default - 
always had to edit 
the G-code. And this was for very simple work.


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

All governments border on being worse than no government.  It is when the 
people start thinking that 
their government can protect them from some evil that government crosses the 
line and becomes worse 
than no government. -kps



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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-22 Thread Mike Payson

At least in the US, Alibre very quietly changed their terms, so while
they still advertise it as costing $97, they require you to buy the
first year of maintenance at $100. Annoying, but considering that it
was $995 and I think $300 for maintenance for the same package not too
long ago (not including the translation package which was an extra
$300 I believe), it's hard to complain too much. I haven't heard that
they were dropping the Translate package as of April, but judging by
how often  they change their pricing, it wouldn't surprise me.

However to get usable CAM, you still need to spend an additional $1k
for either AlibreCAM or Visual Mill for a really easy to use package,
or $150 for CamBam, which isn't really, designed for working from
solid models. Alibre is annoying enough that either the non-commercial
version of Pro-E ($250, but only if you are a hobbyist) or the bundle
of Rhino and MadCAM ($1400, http://www.novedge.com/products/1121) are
pretty tempting.

On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 3:16 AM, Andy Pugh a...@andypugh.fsnet.co.uk wrote:
 On 22 March 2010 00:17, Mike Payson mikepay...@gmail.com wrote:

  Alibre CAD (which is only $197)

 Alibre CAD was $97 unsupported  last time I looked, or £89 from the UK
 distributor. But when I looked again yesterday the US price was $197
 with 1 year support and included and no sign of an option to skip the
 support. So I bought the UK version. (As my work IP address looks to
 be in the US (19.X.X.X) I could probably have bought online from the
 US)

 The reason I bought in a hurry was that currently Alibre comes with
 the Autodesk Inventor and Solidworks import/export options included,
 but as of 1st April this will no longer be the case.

 I have used Alibre CAM in demo mode and it looks like it integrates
 well with the CAD, but I have had a lot more success using SheetCAM
 for my 2.5D stuff.

 As has been pointed out, none are free or Linux native, but I run them
 all in VMWare on my Mac anyway.

 --
 atp

 --
 Download Intel#174; 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
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-22 Thread Steve Blackmore

On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:14:48 +0200, you wrote:

And of course, Freemill at Mecsoft...  (maybe already mentioned)

http://www.mecsoft.com/freemill.shtml

Unless you are doing work that has specific requirements, aim for CAD
products that generate, and CAM that import .stl files. They are simple
triangle files, versatile, and you can usually increase the resolution
during generation to well beyond the resolution of your milling machine.

Apparently .stl is frowned on in the 'real world' as a machining source, but
I think it's great. Converting parasolids between packages often requires a
myriad of variables to be set up, and don't be surprised if you find parts
of your assembly 'off the page'.

STL is frowned on because of the high failure rate on reading or
interpreting the data. STL files need a closed surface where each
triangular edge is part of exactly two triangles, but there is no syntax
checking and often poorly drawn objects create unusable STL.

IGES is considered the de facto standard digital product manufacturing
information exchange format and has been an ANSI standard since 1980.
I've yet to receive an IGES file I couldn't work with, unlike STL where
one that actually works is the exception, rather than the rule.

Steve Blackmore
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-21 Thread Leslie Newell

SheetCam www.sheetcam.com isn't open source but it is pretty 
reasonably priced and there is a Linux version as well as a Windows 
version. The Linux version is a little out of date at the moment but the 
Windows version runs well under Wine. I am working on an update to the 
Linux version.

Les

Karl Schmidt wrote:
 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..

   


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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-21 Thread Sven Wesley

2010/3/20 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.



I use Rhino3D with the MadCam-plugin, it's amazing powerful.
http://www.madcamcnc.com

Regards,
Sven
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-21 Thread Steve Blackmore

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 23:17:00 -0400, you wrote:

I had BobCad and it truly sucks.
It was a complete waste of money for us.
They sold it to us twice promising that it would just take a few small 
edits to the G-code translator to get it to work with Isel machines.
After 4 months they still could not translate to Isel and Bobcad was 
worthless after lots of money and time wasted.

Common complaint, hence it's well know as Bobcrap :)

For routers and the like the Vectric software is hard to beat

http://www.vectric.com/

Good support and easy to use.

For turning and milling I use FeatureCam. It has it's quirks but it's
highly configurable and relatively easy to edit the post processor files
to suit any machine. 

For CAD I use Rhino.

I've probably used just about every major CAD/CAM package out there and
always end up back with these.

None are Linux packages, or free though.

Steve Blackmore
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-21 Thread John Guenther

No, but since no is not in their vocabulary anything is possible.


On Sun, 2010-03-21 at 16:53 -0500, Karl Schmidt wrote:
 ad...@mmri.us wrote:
  I had BobCad and it truly sucks.
  It was a complete waste of money for us.
  They sold it to us twice promising that it would just take a few small 
  edits to the G-code translator to get it to work with Isel machines.
  After 4 months they still could not translate to Isel and Bobcad was 
  worthless after lots of money and time wasted.
 
 Has anyone heard if BobCAD was somehow connected to Scientology?
 
 
 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
 
 Health tip #347:
 When confronted with the urge to exercise;
 simply lay down and wait for it to pass.
 
 
 
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-21 Thread Mike Payson

None of these are Open Source, and non work natively with Linux, but
since those requirements weren't mentioned in your question, only in
the notes you linked to, I'll ignore them in my response. :-)

Nobody seems to have mentioned CamBam. It has a bit of a learning
curve, but it has a ton of power for it's price.
http://www.cambam.info/

At work we use Visual Mill. It's very easy to use if you are coming
from a solid model, so it works great with Alibre CAD (which is only
$197) or another solid modeler (Rhino, Solidworks, Pro-E). You can
also work from DXFs with it, but it loses many of it's benefits if you
do. Visual Mill starts at $1k, but it does have a pretty good feature
set for the price. http://www.mecsoft.com/

Alibre also offers Alibre CAM, which is based on Visual Mill.
Unfortunately, by most accounts Alibre CAM is buggier than the
Standalone Visual Mill. Alibre also charges for Maintenance, and I
believe Visual Mill does not, so in the end Visual Mill works out to
be quite a bit cheaper. http://www.alibre.com/products/ac.asp

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 3:04 PM, Karl Schmidt k...@xtronics.com wrote:
 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#174; Parallel Studio Eval
 Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
 proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-21 Thread Ries van Twisk


On Mar 21, 2010, at 7:17 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

 None of these are Open Source, and non work natively with Linux, but
 since those requirements weren't mentioned in your question, only in
 the notes you linked to, I'll ignore them in my response. :-)

 Nobody seems to have mentioned CamBam. It has a bit of a learning
 curve, but it has a ton of power for it's price.
 http://www.cambam.info/

 At work we use Visual Mill. It's very easy to use if you are coming
 from a solid model, so it works great with Alibre CAD (which is only
 $197) or another solid modeler (Rhino, Solidworks, Pro-E). You can
 also work from DXFs with it, but it loses many of it's benefits if you
 do. Visual Mill starts at $1k, but it does have a pretty good feature
 set for the price. http://www.mecsoft.com/

I tried cambam but found the free version very buggy, the non free  
version seems to be
much more solid, I would properly buy it if it was not that there  
sales website is down..

Pro/E has a build in g-code generator, compatible with EMS, or at  
least for the 3 axis what I have been using so far.
It's extremely powerful and modifies the G-code even after the model  
has been changed, parametric to the power!!!
It's does have some learning curve though, but you benefit from if if  
you make the same part in different configurations (sizes or family  
tables).


Ries



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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-21 Thread Mike Payson

Ries,

Thanks for the recommendation. At $5k, Pro-E is pretty spendy for my
needs, but it looks like they do offer a non-commercial version for
$250. Might be worth considering.

http://store.ptc.com/DRHM/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPageSiteID=ptcLocale=en_USEnv=BASEproductID=107381300

Mike

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Ries van Twisk e...@rvt.dds.nl wrote:

On Mar 21, 2010, at 7:17 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

None of these are Open Source, and non work natively with Linux, but
since those requirements weren't mentioned in your question, only in
the notes you linked to, I'll ignore them in my response. :-)

Nobody seems to have mentioned CamBam. It has a bit of a learning
curve, but it has a ton of power for it's price.
http://www.cambam.info/

At work we use Visual Mill. It's very easy to use if you are coming
from a solid model, so it works great with Alibre CAD (which is only
$197) or another solid modeler (Rhino, Solidworks, Pro-E). You can
also work from DXFs with it, but it loses many of it's benefits if you
do. Visual Mill starts at $1k, but it does have a pretty good feature
set for the price. http://www.mecsoft.com/

I tried cambam but found the free version very buggy, the non free
version seems to be
much more solid, I would properly buy it if it was not that there
sales website is down..

Ries

Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-21 Thread Ries van Twisk

On Mar 21, 2010, at 8:41 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

Ries,

Thanks for the recommendation. At $5k, Pro-E is pretty spendy for my
needs, but it looks like they do offer a non-commercial version for
$250. Might be worth considering.

http://store.ptc.com/DRHM/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPageSiteID=ptcLocale=en_USEnv=BASEproductID=107381300

Mike

Mike,

PRO-E can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but so far as a hobbiest I
have reasonable good experiences with it.

Ries

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Ries van Twisk e...@rvt.dds.nl
wrote:

On Mar 21, 2010, at 7:17 PM, Mike Payson wrote:

None of these are Open Source, and non work natively with Linux, but
since those requirements weren't mentioned in your question, only in
the notes you linked to, I'll ignore them in my response. :-)

Nobody seems to have mentioned CamBam. It has a bit of a learning
curve, but it has a ton of power for it's price.
http://www.cambam.info/

I tried cambam but found the free version very buggy, the non free
version seems to be
much more solid, I would properly buy it if it was not that there
sales website is down..

Ries

[Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-20 Thread Karl Schmidt

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.



--
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Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-20 Thread Paul Keeton

The company I work for uses both. Our preferred package is Synergy. We use 
it on our big production machine programs. A couple of the guys still use 
BobCad at the machines for quick edits and tooling and fixture jobs. Type in 
Weber Systems in the search engine and think you can get a 30 day trial of 
Synergy for either windows or linux.

Dave

- Original Message - 
From: Karl Schmidt k...@xtronics.com
To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2010 6:04 PM
Subject: [Emc-users] CAM solutions


 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#174; 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
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 Emc-users mailing list
 Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net
 https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
 



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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-20 Thread Sebastian Kuzminsky

Karl Schmidt wrote:
 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.
   

I have generated tool paths from STL files with pycam.  It seems to 
work, the GUI is very easy to use, but it runs very slowly.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/pycam/


I have made some 2d drawings and solid models with HeeksCAD, and 
generated tool paths using the HeeksCNC plugin.  HeeksCAD is not quite 
ready for prime time yet, but it's showing a *lot* of promise and it's 
got an active community of users and developers.

http://code.google.com/p/heekscad/
http://code.google.com/p/heekscnc/


The gcode output from pycam and heeks both loaded into emc2 axis and 
seemed to run just fine.  I don't have any CNC machines yet, so I 
haven't gone all the way yet.

In the awesome future there will be a full set of open source 
CAD/CAM/CNC software on the EMC2 LiveCD, but we're not quite there yet.

-- 
Sebastian Kuzminsky


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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-20 Thread dave

On Sat, 2010-03-20 at 16:55 -0600, Sebastian Kuzminsky wrote:
 Karl Schmidt wrote:
  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.

 
 I have generated tool paths from STL files with pycam.  It seems to 
 work, the GUI is very easy to use, but it runs very slowly.
 
 https://sourceforge.net/projects/pycam/
 
 
 I have made some 2d drawings and solid models with HeeksCAD, and 
 generated tool paths using the HeeksCNC plugin.  HeeksCAD is not quite 
 ready for prime time yet, but it's showing a *lot* of promise and it's 
 got an active community of users and developers.
 
 http://code.google.com/p/heekscad/
 http://code.google.com/p/heekscnc/
 
 
 The gcode output from pycam and heeks both loaded into emc2 axis and 
 seemed to run just fine.  I don't have any CNC machines yet, so I 
 haven't gone all the way yet.
 
 In the awesome future there will be a full set of open source 
 CAD/CAM/CNC software on the EMC2 LiveCD, but we're not quite there yet.
 

No one has mentioned apt360. Indeed it is an old package recently
converted to C with  some success. I think most of the 2D stuff works
but there are known problems within the 3D portion. Check the wiki for
download information. It really needs an active set of developers to
clean it up and make certain all of the calls to gsl are right on. 

Stuart uses a commercial version of apt360 called NCL. I tried some of
the code for lofted surfaces and it failed in apt360 but worked in NCL.
Thanks to Stuart for checking that out. 

There is a visual interface for apt360 called vapt. Again check the
wiki. 

I use Synergy for all my 2.5D stuff and a bit of the 3D. I'm just not
good at 3D. There is a BIG gap between what I can visualize and what I
can realize. Isn't that always the way it is. ;-)

HTH 

Dave



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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-20 Thread melamy

I was able to get a copy of Dolphin Partmaster Pro through their Hobby link on 
their website. I paid less than retail and will be running the software on a 
Win7 x64 platform networked to my EMC2 platform in the shop. Just putting the 
pieces together now. Anyone that is interested in Dolphin should at least 
register on their site. They were great to work with and you never know what 
might happen. I am looking forward to my first project after I get the CNC 
hardware finished.

best regards, Steve Thatcher
Kenmore, WA



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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-20 Thread ad...@mmri.us

I had BobCad and it truly sucks.
It was a complete waste of money for us.
They sold it to us twice promising that it would just take a few small 
edits to the G-code translator to get it to work with Isel machines.
After 4 months they still could not translate to Isel and Bobcad was 
worthless after lots of money and time wasted.

If I hear BobCad, I run and hide.
Since most of our work is 2-dim and simple,  the fastest way is just to 
write straight g-code which became a pleasure to work with compared to 
the enormous bogus claims made by bobcad to get it working with their 
software. I will not deal with them ever again.

In the end simple won for me.

I know 3-d would be a mess with G-code, working out all the toolpath 
constraints, but so far I did not need it, cross-fingers.

Hope to find a good 3-d Cam for Linux though.




Paul Keeton wrote:
 The company I work for uses both. Our preferred package is Synergy. We use 
 it on our big production machine programs. A couple of the guys still use 
 BobCad at the machines for quick edits and tooling and fixture jobs. Type in 
 Weber Systems in the search engine and think you can get a 30 day trial of 
 Synergy for either windows or linux.

   


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Re: [Emc-users] CAM solutions

2010-03-20 Thread Dave

There is a CAM program out there called EZCAM( 
http://www.ezcam.com/web/index.htm#)  I tried to use the EZCAM Express 
Turn software (about $1000) and after about 8 hours of banging my head 
against a wall I gave up.

The manual and documentation is terrible.   I have worked with some 
really hostile software before but this stuff is really bad.  I don't 
know how bad BobCad is, but EZCAM, at least the version I used 
(purchased new about two months ago) was truly horrible.

If you look at the CNCZone website they have a group, but the group came 
together chatted a lot about how great the software is for a couple of 
days and then there has been no activity for a long, long time.  I think 
the exchange was rigged, seriously.

I wouldn't buy the software if it was $20.  It is that bad.

Dave



On 3/20/2010 10:17 PM, ad...@mmri.us wrote:
 I had BobCad and it truly sucks.
 It was a complete waste of money for us.
 They sold it to us twice promising that it would just take a few small
 edits to the G-code translator to get it to work with Isel machines.
 After 4 months they still could not translate to Isel and Bobcad was
 worthless after lots of money and time wasted.

 If I hear BobCad, I run and hide.
 Since most of our work is 2-dim and simple,  the fastest way is just to
 write straight g-code which became a pleasure to work with compared to
 the enormous bogus claims made by bobcad to get it working with their
 software. I will not deal with them ever again.

 In the end simple won for me.

 I know 3-d would be a mess with G-code, working out all the toolpath
 constraints, but so far I did not need it, cross-fingers.

 Hope to find a good 3-d Cam for Linux though.




 Paul Keeton wrote:

 The company I work for uses both. Our preferred package is Synergy. We use
 it on our big production machine programs. A couple of the guys still use
 BobCad at the machines for quick edits and tooling and fixture jobs. Type in
 Weber Systems in the search engine and think you can get a 30 day trial of
 Synergy for either windows or linux.


  

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