My channel is about working with a home made CNC machine. I usually process wood, but I do mill aluminum from time to time. I use open source software so anyone can try my projects, without any other cost. I use FreeCAD for the 3d designs and path generation and Universal G-Code Sender (UGS) for controlling the machine. The CNC is based on an ESP32 board, with external drivers for the stepper motors. It runs a FluidNC installation. For the moment, I use my laptop to control the CNC.
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This was excellent! Also, you have the patience of a saint. I think I would have given up and used a different CAM tool. So glad you took the time to show us all the needed workarounds. I’ve seen your recent GitHub issues too - thanks for taking the time to create those! From what I read in the FreeCAD Discord, I believe that the CAM workbench will be a focus area of improvements for the next year (after the 1.0 release).
Great work again!! I’d love to see your work on the cam for an electric guitar .. eg ; take one of the guitars that the marz guitar workbench generates and do the cam for the fretboard , then the body 2sided milling and then the neck again 2 sided milling .. I’ve seen a few vids done by Austin Shaner on a paid cad cam software but I’d love to see your take .. again great stuff!!
@@opensourcecnc you could do a series.. finish up by cutting out the parts on your cnc.. if you need any help with the luthier side of the vids please let me know .. thanks again I’m really looking forward to this… cheers 👍🤙
Great stuff!! Have you considered working with the devs on the cam workbench…. Your using cam to its fullest potential and finding its weaknesses ie setting the tool bit to stay down should be a check box on the main window not in the menus below… the rest tooling should be absolutely developed and expanded further with a crash warning implemented.. not to mention the 3D operations that are buggy beyond use ability … these are features that only an experienced cnc operator would notice ,and I think the devs need this kind of depth of insight .. thanks again for your vids !! Top notch!!
I am just starting to work with the devs. I went to the Springfield meetup last month. Version 1.0 will be a major achievement. I consider both REST machining and adaptive toolpaths to be critical doing serious work with FreeCAD. If you are interested in helping ... and that could be just writing user documentation .... please reach out.
Thank you for your invitation. I will for sure take into consideration contributing. Not sure for now exactly how, but there are a lot of things that can get better and the only way it can happen is if we all work together.
Another nice video, have you looked into the "Cam sanity checker", 3rd menu item down on the CAM menu. It generates a nice PDF report of a Job object, including a list of all cycle times, so you know which toolpaths to tackle first.
Very cool method. Will this work for a curved surface made of multiple faces. I am trying to mill a contoured/curved injection mould. I think blender CAM or Kiri moto may work better for this type of operation though.
EXCELLENT video. You are giving me hope that I might be able to use my CNC machine again. THANK YOU for doing these information-packed videos. "Big Thanks" sent!
Hi. How can I set the Z feedrate? My GRBL post uses horizontal and vertical feeds for Z axis too and this makes my tool smash into the material. Plz Help!!
When creating the job (or double click on it to edit), go to the "Tools" tab, and in the table with the tools, you have two separate values, H and V. Double click on the V and enter a lower value, that's the vertical feed speed. If you want to modify the rapid speed (the one used when not cutting), under the tools table you have a tab called default values. There you can set the speed when the toolbit is not cutting. Hope this helps
@AndreMonthy haven't heard of it or used it, but I'll take a look, if it's open source. Otherwise, it's outside the scope of my channel. Edit: Checked it, it has absolutely no 3D capability, only 2.5D, so don't see how it could handle 3D operations. Plus some text saying that current capabilities are free, but the professional upcoming ones will be based on subscription, worries me to the point where I don't even feel like trying it
This is the video I was waiting for. I'm trying to get my workflow ironed out for my MPCNC. The resolution and large mouse pointer looks good on a phone screen, so thanks for that!
@@opensourcecnc Yes your content is very informative! Try going slow and use a cursor with yellow circle because you drag the mouse too fast and then it's lost 😁
Great stuff again !! Your content is on the money with the cam/path workbench ..it’s the best I’ve seen by a huge margin .. the workarounds are key.. The freecad devs should watch your vids as you are pointing out the limits/flaws in the path/cam workbench that need to be addressed… thanks again!!
First very nice video. But of course, there are differing opinions... I would have used an adaptive tool path, with a quick profile for clean up, then followed up with a "rest operation" using a much smaller bit. You say "adaptive tool path" take to long ... is that in computing them or running them? The idea I believe is to helix into full depth, then mill with a longer portion of the bit ... net result is a quicker and more bit efficient (bit stays sharper) cut. What are your thoughts and concerns?
Thank you! On a rectangular surface such as this one, the pocket is way faster both at computing and at running. Also, on a i7 8750, after 5 minutes of computing the boundary dress up for the adaptive operation, I had to force close FreeCAD. Of course there are more ways of doing things, each of them with advantages and disadvantages. The adaptive is, indeed, good for extending the toolbits life. It is especially useful when milling metals. On wood, as long as you don't burn it by setting too high rpm, there's a higher risk of breaking the bit using the adaptive than to dull the tip by using too small layers for a pocket operation.
About the "rest option". It is a great concept, but it works acceptable 2 out of 10 times, for now. It will probably get better over time, but now it's just a matter of luck.
@@opensourcecnc I have to ask what version of FreeCAD you are running. I use 0.22 as my daily version, and I don't know that I have seen issues with either. Have you submitted bug reports? I just left a FreeCAD meetup last week and 0.22 is about to become a release candidate in the next week or two. Both of those features are queued for version 1.0, so if there are bugs, please report them.
@@carlslater7492 I use 0.22, too. I haven't submitted bug reports, my last few experiences (a long time ago, I have to admit) about submitting bugs were very bad. I just gave up
Btw, I remember you asked me about the grbl post processor: please set the default for drilling to automatically translate the instructions, it's really annoying to have to manually set a parameter in a quite deep place in order to not have errors when sending the code to a grbl controller.
In v0.22dev they implemented the contextually based dimensioning tool (Shortcut is the letter D) which looks like a red, sideways lying A with a dimensioning line above it.
Hello again, as per your example drawing how would you process the square spigot if it was originally the same size of the stock. Can you have the milling cutter follow the shape the the square spigot (like a profile cut) starting from the outside of the stock a working it's way inwards with say a 5% step over at full depth till it machines the final size of the spigot. This would be useful for machine metals. cheers
@@opensourcecnc Hello, I gave it a try and it did work with a little playing around. I made a Hex shape and a Cam lobe shape both extruded from a square plate. Once again thanks for your help.
Try a fresh blender install, the latest version. There's an error or module missing in your version. If that doesn't work, try installing the blender+blender cam bundle from blender cam.com
Hello, great video, I tried this example but can't seem to do the countersink, all I get is a series of step down cuts. I have tried it on Ver.0,21.2 and I also downloaded V0.22 but still no good. I noticed that the 3D surface Icon doesn't have the same options on my program as your ( no pull down options just the one icon) any ideas. Thanks
You have to enable the experimental features in the path (0.21) or cam (0.22) workbench. Unfortunately, I don't have a video about that, but I'll make one soon. Here's the official page with instructions: wiki.freecad.org/CAM_experimental
Hello, just found your channel and have enjoyed watching some of your videos. I would be very interested in seeing the build of your Machine . The hardware and the software used in your machine and ow they interact. thanks 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Hi, thank you very much for all your video's! Stupid question probably, I am a noob. I am trying to engrave some text but don't see a 30 dregree v carve bit in Free Cad with the correct dimensions in the library. Is this video explaining what i should do or is there an easy way? Seems to me that 30 degree is pretty standard for engraving. Would really appreciate your respons :) Kind regards Pim, and keep up the good work!
Hi! Thanks for the appreciation. Go to episode 5, create a new predefined shape toolbit, because the v bit is already in the default shapes, you just need different dimensions. There I explain how to add a new toolbit to the library and give new dimensions
Hi and thanks for this video. About drilling operation and grbl controllers, you can add the option --translate_drill to the PostProcessor Args in freeCAD. This will turn G81 in a set of G0/G1 so you can drill on grbl machines.
Thanks! I used to get frustrated, too. It's because the FreeCAD way is different compared to other programs. Once you get used to it, you'll have no problem in doing stuff, even though it does have it's bugs. But you have to hang in there for a while before feeling comfortable enough to overcome the frustrating situations
@@opensourcecnc Yeah, knowing the workarounds is important, and many of them aren't intuitive. Videos like yours are a goldmine of good information that would take hours to figure out on my own.
Thanks! Glad you like it. I still run into the TNP from time to time even on 0.22, as some situations are simply unsolvable. I think the TNP is rather a problem in the way we think, rather than a programming issue. I prefer to avoid it if possible and necessary, that's why I mention it.
