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Anyone know anything about CNC machines (bonus points for 3d printer knowledge too)...
I want to buy a metal-capable CNC as well as a 3D printer to supplement it. Mostly to do random projects. But could use advice on what to purchase.
I am also curious about the software side, ideally id like to get a CNC that is easy to work with from a software level and bonus points if i could somehow use the same software to design for both CNC and 3d printer since parts for any particular project are likely to come from both.
Thanks, yea thats kinda what i figured on the 3d side.. though im not clear how you go from a CAD design to the slicer. Presumable a cad design consists of multiple parts in one design fitted together. The 3d printer, as well as the CNC (depending on which part) will handle the parts indivudally.
So I presume there is some way in the CAD program to break up your design into files where each file represents a different part in a single design. Then you send the 3d ones off tp the slicer, then the CNC ones off to whatever handles that.
Also, like you, I am less clear on the CNC side than the 3d side (though im not all **that** clear on the 3d side either except at a high level, where you seem to have worked with it more).
@freemo Your CAD software will treat each manifold object as a "body" (terminology varies) and you export each body to a mesh in STL/OBJ format for your slicer to process. Slicer gives you gcode for the printer.
@PCOWandre ahh ok that makes sense. So the cad software at least has some sense of discrete parts and can break it down when it comes time to manufacture it...
Now the only question is, what printer and CNC do I buy that is both metal capable and feature rich from a software compatability standpoint (I'd imagine some CNC or 3d printers night not work on open standards or something that i need to look otu for).
@icedquinn not sure i heard of Prusa yet, ill check that out.
@icedquinn Ahh just checked, Prusa is the slicer, not the design software... ok still useful but I assume all slicers work ont he same file formats so I think picking the design software might be the more critical decision here, correct me if im wrong.
@icedquinn ahh ok, i was looking at the software by the same name. cool. I think for a 3d printer im going to need high-resolution and dual filament as minimum requirements... I will likely need a pretty generous size as ill probably be printing relatively large objects.
@icedquinn To clarify I know that on the 3d printer I'm looking for a bare minimum of 0.1mm resolution or better. I know that rules out most printers that are less expensive,especially when you couple it with my need for a relativly large printing volume.
@freemo Also, I can't speak to choosing CNC hardware, but three quick printer reviews:
1. Ender3 -- requires patience. And mods.
2. Anycubic Chiron -- huge print area but can be annoying to level. Ultrabase build surface is great.
3. Artillery SX1 -- very nice quality out of the box, but the clone Ultrabase isn't as good as the real thing.
@PCOWandre can you elaborate on #1 a bit?
@freemo The Ender 3 issues/mods? The stock extruder was plastic and had slippage and wear problems; replaced. The stock BuildTak-type surface seemed to flip between failing to stick and holding with enough force to mandate a hammer to get things loose. Replaced with magnetic build surface. Stock firmware has thermal runaway protection disabled, which might have changed by now. Spool holder is stupid.
Ultimately, I got plenty of good prints out of it but the hassle was enough to move it on when I got the Chiron. The Chiron hit the reliability point where I don't stick around to watch it.
@PCOWandre ok so yea that sounds troubling and speaks to quiality issues... so might not want to go that route then thanks.
@freemo I'd strongly advise everyone considering their first 3D printer purchase to remember one thing: the cheap 3D printers from China are exactly what you'd expect from cheap Chinese products.
They're certainly capable of doing the job, but they're a hobby, not a commercial tool. These machines require one to make a hobby of 3D printing, not just use it as a simple tool towards a greater whole.
You will fight with levelling issues and speeds/feeds for new filaments and bed adhesion and alignment and banding and vibration and all sorts of fun things. On the plus side, there's usually a fair few useful mods on thingiverse that you can just print to work around issues.
Tip number two is a lot of the community for these printers is gated away in members-only Facebook groups which is a pain in the arse.
@PCOWandre I already knew going in that the cheap stuff wasnt an option, particularly given my high resolution requirements. Precision machining is never going to be cheap.
@freemo Depending on where you are, it might be more sensible to proof your CNC designs on your 3D printer and then send the CAD files to a job shop to get them machined.
@PCOWandre that would get too expensive over the long term, especially considering that there may be many design iterations. Plus the CNC is likely to also enable me to do PCB and other things.
If nothing else having my own CNC is going to greatly reduce turn around and thus reduce project development time significantly.
A lot of people use Blender (or try to) for cosmetic 3D prints. I always tell people not to do this, although if you're using something like Sverchok then it's basically a CAD program at that point.
CAD software usually has a button to export to a format like STL or OBJ.
I would assume you import finished STLs in order to make use of finished parts from elsewhere in a build. But it probably depends on the software you use.
I havent used blender in many years, but from what i know of it, specifically the work flow, it would seem more suited for 3d models and animations than for physical machining. Machined objects usually have a lot of symmetries and uniformity to their design since they are functional more than aesthetic. It just doesnt seem what blender is intended for. Blender feels more like working with clay making arbitrary shapes where CAD feels more like working with a straight edge and technical drawings...
It would be like doing a blueprint of a house in blender. Sure you could do it, but man that seems way more convoluted than doing it in CAD software.
Does Scerchok enable things like solids of revolution designs? One of the thing that was nice about fusion 360 is you could basically just create solids from 2d sketches by applying things like a solid of revolution to it. I presume for blender to be useful it would have to do the same, perhaps this plugin adds that?
i used freecad a couple years ago. i was able to reverse engineer some parts with calipers and then re-create the constraints, although i wasn't ever able to print it (the part was just too small; would had to have redesigned it for something a 3d printer can actually do.)
I am not trying to build a single thing. Thats the problem. The projects ill need to build will change as quickly as the direction of the wind as I have diverse hobby and professional needs.
For example one thing i need to build is the framework for a cryogenic cooling system, which will mostly be done with the CNC cutting out metal struts and such. Another thing I'd like to build is a smart chess board and chess pieces, yet another is a peltier powered near-cryogenic liquid-cooler (basically a 3 or 4 level stacked peltier configuration)...
so yea, ill be building all sorts of things and thus need a pretty versatile setup.
freecad works the most like inventor. i think its meant to be aping features from it but i never used inventor or 360.
openscad is all code. pain in the ass a lot of the time, but if the shapes you need are algorithmic then it's pretty easy to just give it a formula for hex faces and then have it dump out a pile of screws or something.
haven't used sverchok. i should though.
hmm openscad sounds interesting, but "all code" sounds restrictive. Would be nice to see some sort of cross where you define the shapes in code and coordinates, it renders it in a 3d image to see, and you could manipulate it with it hte mouse to tweak the coordinate values.
The nice part about all code would be that it would be git/merge friendly (huge plus), AND would make it way easier to dynamically change the design if you needed each print out to be slightly different. For example if i did an arduino case I might need to 4 different designs depending on how many stacked modules are on the arduino. So instead of designing 4 different cases that were similar and maintaining them all in parallel I could just design it once and have the height as a parameter.
So yea openscad or something similar in nature sounds appealing, but as you said also sounds tedious if you really have to do it **all** in code.
'tis why i said its really only worth it for things like screws. if its a heavily technical part like IC casings, bolts, brackets and the like, where the model is simple, but parametric, and probably needs a lot of variants, its great.
As much as I love functional programming clojure, and even more so lisp, just make my skin crawl. If it used any other functional language I would jump on that in a heartbeat!
Most models I am likely to do will be geometrically simple. A lot of it will be enclosures. Its unlikely I will have too much need to do anything "artistic" where there is a lot of fine detail. The only reason i need high resolution of 0.1mm isnt for fine detail but rather for precision fitting of parts. though also ensuring surfaces are relatively smooth is part of that.
Right, I got that.
openscad languages limitation might be an issue, and something that generates the openscad code does sound like the right solution. Though im not sure I'd want to roll my own.
From the look of it im not sure openscad format is a "language" at all. There doesnt seem to be conditional logic or any of the elements of a turing complete language. Looks more like a file format for defining shapes.. I'd put it in the same vein as something like the file format for SVGs.
might be worth looking at blender then.. I dunno blender just feels like a tool not intended for this purpose and any plugins that try to fix that wont be as good as picking a tool actually intended for engineering design.
Also I would love to hear any input from @meowski if you can help, thanks.
@icedquinn