What software should I be using?

Mostly Printed CNC - MPCNC Advice
1

I finally finished my MPCNC, thanks to the hardware kit in the shop. But now that I’ve got it all set up… I have no idea how to use it! My board is a mini-rambo running Marlin, and I’ve been controlling it from a laptop running RepetierHost. But I have no idea how to generate gcode.

Everywhere I look I’m recommended either Fusion360 or estlcam, but I’m a big free software guy and I can’t help but try to find an alternative. Easel from Inventables looks very easy, but it can only do engravings. I’m hoping to do stuff like the Mona Lisa and other “3d-like” objects.

I know linuxcnc and pycam exist, but the linuxcmc arch package seem deprecated and pycam I just don’t understand where I would use it.

2

Riotate,

Fusion360 is available free to hobbyists. I use it for CAD as well as CAM for my MPCNC.

3

I get the impression (?) Ryan seems to prefer it if people use estlcam. Not sure if you need a separate g-code sender program, or whether these CAM packages handle that for you as well.

4

You actually don’t have to buy estlcam, you can use it for free, you just have to wait through the popup box when you generate code. But personally, I use fusion under the free hobbiest license because I am familiar with autocad, you can do anything you need to do in creating the CAD portion and then you can do all the CAM work as well. It was a bit of a learning curve, but well worth the effort in my opinion.

5

Sorry, I meant free software as in open source, GPL licensed. I’ll give Fusion360 a shot though (don’t want to boot into windows to run estlcam). So with any of these programs, I just 0,0 and hit run?

6

I assume you mean a CAD program? I do have the crown tutorials for how to actually use Vector files to make your own things, but for CAD, making from Scratch…at MRRF so many people were talking about tinkerCAD. I have never used, open or even seen it. It is on my list of things to get done but I was strongly recommended by many respected people to get up some info on using tinkercad to do some basic shapes/parts. Weird to do a blind recommendation.

7

I’ll be using FreeCAD, likely. I’m trying to generate gcode from stl’s. Sorry, don’t know any terms outside of 3d printing.

8

Are you using .16 or .17 version of freeCAD?

Converting STL’s to solids gets messy. You’re better off importing a Step or Iges file of the object if that’s an option.

.17 is not officially in a release state, but it has many advanced features that .16 lacks especially in the Path workbench (which is used to generate G-code for 2.5D milling operations)

Tom