It will allow you to painlessly select, move, and modify the parts independently from the rest of the model.Ĭomponents in SketchUp are also useful because when you create a copy of a particular component and make a change to one, those changes are automatically updated in all of the clones of that component. Doing so will make your life much easier in the CAD process. Notice that as we are modelling the separate pieces, they are made into components. We will be using 4ft x 8ft sheets of 3/4 inch birch plywood for the main structure material, joined with machine screws and cross dowel nuts. This cart will allow us to store materials and easily move the machine from place to place. In this example, we will be fabricating a cart for our blackTooth laser cutter ( ). So, keep in mind that this tutorial is one of many different ways of going from CAD to final product. You may be using a different CAD program, CAM program, CNC control program, CNC machine, material sizes and fastening methods, and you will likely be fabricating a wide variety of products in the end. Keep in mind during this tutorial that the particular hardware/software tools, materials and application of these instructions will vary from person-to-person, region-to-region, and project-to-project. The tools we will be using are SketchUp for CAD, CamBam for CAM, Mach3 for gcode reading/CNC control, and a CNC router (greenBull from ) for part fabrication.
I'm using 1mm diameter endmills for the parts we're making here, and we've already snapped off half a dozen of them or so, just on acccount of this irritating bug.Īnyway, thanks for the replies, but these are the reasons why we're heading for Mach4, or maybe something like Flashcut if Mach4 isn't better.This video series shows how to get from CAD, to CAM, to a CNC fabricated product. Here's my thread where I was trying to figure out what to do about that: On top of that, there's the known bug within Mach3 where the axes will sometimes continue moving on their own, while you're just trying to jog a wee bit here and there to set the origin.
It was fine for prototypes, but I've been using this machine to make 1,000 copies of a small plastic part this summer, and the occasional random freezes and errors with Mach3 are a significant irritant. However for reference, you can see some long descriptions of what I've been dealing with, over at my thread on Warp9:īasically, I don't like or trust Mach3 any more. I won't try to rehash the saga of my experiences with Mach3 here, as it will just clog everything up.
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