• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Workshop Uses for 3D Printing

novocaine":1x8btx0l said:
Mike G":1x8btx0l said:
Sorry......Dave, are you saying you made those bits with a bit of kit worth only £170?
Yes, yes i am. I'm not sure if you are being facitousious with your comment that I paid 170 quid to have the ability to make Random bits of plastic tatt or not. But either way, yes I paid 170 quid and yes this is what it makes. :lol:

No, I wasn't being facetious. I'm just amazed. These things were thousands not so long back. The number of times I've wanted random little plastic parts...... Sheesh, I held a patent for a few years for something which had umpteen little plastic parts, or at least, parts which would have best been made out of plastic. Some I heat-formed. Some I routed, cut, filed and sanded. Some I got friends to turn for me. But most I made them out of aluminium instead. Having a £170 machine make them for me (I'm pretty good at 3D "drawing" [modelling]) would have been a game-changer.
 
The first fdm I used was £100,000. It was the size of a car and used laser sintering of plastic powders. It belonged to university of Salford. I now have a machine that can match or better it on quality. The world is a strange place.

Oh and I used to be a draftsman and for a while a Parts designer. So I'm pretty handy where CAD is concerned. (I also made models of process systems at one point, this would have saved the 5 months of my life that I'll never get back for that job).

I hope you didn't take my comment as being rude. I can't read emotions in text form. :)
 
Dr.Al":1asxywbe said:
Malc2098":1asxywbe said:
Dr.Al":1asxywbe said:
No problem, give me a shout if you get stuck or you want me to record a short video showing a simple part (e.g. the chisel rack) being made. The tutorials are also excellent.


Thanks.

You didn't actually ask for this, but I was curious how long it would actually take to draw it from scratch (about 5 minutes) and wanted to test how easy it is to record a video, so I made it anyway. Feel free not to bother to watch this if you're not that interested!

It's probably worth watching full screen (for which you might need to follow the link to youtube) as some of the buttons are quite small (I've got a fairly big monitor and I recorded all of it).

[youtubessl]5lNQiQmm0WQ[/youtubessl]

Full link: https://youtu.be/5lNQiQmm0WQ


Nice. You work at a speed that I could copy with a few pauses. I watch an American chap who models guitar part in Fusion 360, that even with pauses, I don't know what he's doing!

Is there a CAM part of Onshape to create the tool paths for the cnc routing file?
 
novocaine":15jon3e6 said:
.........I hope you didn't take my comment as being rude.....

Not in the slightest, Dave. I've known you too long for that.
 
Malc2098":1m8qe84w said:
Nice. You work at a speed that I could copy with a few pauses. I watch an American chap who models guitar part in Fusion 360, that even with pauses, I don't know what he's doing!

Is there a CAM part of Onshape to create the tool paths for the cnc routing file?

I know it's possible, but I'm not sure whether it's included in the free version. There's a thing called the OnShape App Store (everything has an app store these days ;) ). I just looked and there's one that seems to be free, but I don't have anything CNC-ish, so I can't comment on what it's like:

https://appstore.onshape.com/apps/CAM/E ... escription

RogerS":1m8qe84w said:
How much does the printer cost and will it work with a Mac ?

The short answer: depends on the printer for the first question and almost certainly yes for the second question.

Longer answers:

There's a bit of a gradient of price and effort (in terms of fettling). When I bought mine (in the Black Friday sales), I decided to spend a bit more and get one with a reputation of just working without needing much effort (I wanted to print stuff, not spend time learning about extrusion rates and temperatures and suchlike). I bought the Prusa i3 Mk3S+ Kit, which was about £700. You can, of course, pay a lot more than that, but you can get them for as little as £150 if you don't mind the idea of a bit more work to tweak things to get it to work well. In between the two extremes there are lots of options, including the Creality Ender 3 and Ender 3 Mk2, which I believe are well thought of and probably less work than the £150 one for not much more money.

As for Mac, the only one I have experience of is the Prusa one. The "Slicer" (that takes a 3D model and turns it into something the printer can understand) runs on Windows, Mac and Linux and you then just copy the result onto an SD card and plug it into the printer. The printer doesn't need to be plugged into a computer at all for normal use. You can also add a raspberry pi (running OctoPi Linux) on the side and send the files over the network: again this is operating system independent.
 
on the flip side of Dr. Al's machine, mine cost 170 quid at christmas, setup was a matter of putting the z axis and lead screw on, followed by a bed leveling (manual on this machine, were as Al has mesh levelling). then the requisit first print of a silly little boat.
I use Cura for slicing and FreeCad for designing. both have Mac versions available for free.
I have tweaked a bit as I go, the most sensitive perameters for me being temperatures.
every few weeks I relevel the bed.

yes I've added a few own design bits to the printer as times gone on, none of them were needed, it was simply because I could.

the difference between 170 quid and 700 quid is mainly size (I have a print of 180x180x180mm), rigidity (not that my machine isn't rigid enough mind you) and things like mesh leveling and belt tensioners etc. Al will also be able to get parts for his, long in to the future, I expect I will be modifying parts from other machines to fit in the next 2 years, which I'm fine with.


I'm not saying buy the kingroon by the way, it's a horses for courses type affair, I'd love to have Al's machine, but I don't have the space.
 
novocaine":1ry6eg6q said:
on the flip side of Dr. Al's machine, mine cost 170 quid at christmas, setup was a matter of putting the z axis and lead screw on, followed by a bed leveling (manual on this machine, were as Al has mesh levelling). then the requisit first print of a silly little boat.
I use Cura for slicing and FreeCad for designing. both have Mac versions available for free.
I have tweaked a bit as I go, the most sensitive perameters for me being temperatures.
every few weeks I relevel the bed.

yes I've added a few own design bits to the printer as times gone on, none of them were needed, it was simply because I could.

the difference between 170 quid and 700 quid is mainly size (I have a print of 180x180x180mm), rigidity (not that my machine isn't rigid enough mind you) and things like mesh leveling and belt tensioners etc. Al will also be able to get parts for his, long in to the future, I expect I will be modifying parts from other machines to fit in the next 2 years, which I'm fine with.


I'm not saying buy the kingroon by the way, it's a horses for courses type affair, I'd love to have Al's machine, but I don't have the space.

:text-goodpost:
 
Mike G":2lr6udfw said:
The number of times I've wanted random little plastic parts.

You can see where this might be going, all I can say is get your marking gauge now before it evolves into plastic fake bog oak. :lol: :lol:
 
Cool stuff. I've done a bunch of modeling for 3D printing useing SketchUp which a friend has printed. I can't decide on what printer I'd want and every time I think I've made a decision a new printer comes out. The FIRST Robotics team for which I'm a mentor uses OnShape. Very powerful but I fond it exceedingly clumsy and tedious to use. It's so different from SketchUp.

Nothing special here. These were draft prints my mate printed for me from a simple SketchUp model.


I modeled this crank arm in SketchUp as a replacement for part a drill press in the shop the robotics team uses. The 3D printed part was on the drill press less than 24 hours after the original one broke.
 
Andyp":3jt2kwvi said:
Dave, The mind boggles

Thank you, Andy. It might be a good thing I haven't got my own 3D printer. The house would be full of useless 3D printed knick knacks. :D
 
Dave R":3fneaht4 said:
...uses OnShape. Very powerful but I fond it exceedingly clumsy and tedious to use. It's so different from SketchUp.

I think a lot of it is a combination of what makes sense to your brain and what you're used to.

I used Sketchup years ago before I had anything else and I managed to model a few things (including the driveway & the steps up to the front door), but I never got on with it. By contrast I picked up most of the parametric CAD systems I've tried quite quickly. I'm in awe of what you do with Sketchup, but I'll stick with CAD.

The impression I've got is that there are 4 main ways 3D packages work.

If you can use Sketchup then with practice you'll get good at Sketchup.

If you can use Fusion 360, then with practice you'll get good at Fusion 360 and, with a lot of work, you can learn to use other parametric CAD systems.

If you can use OpenSCAD, OpenJSCAD or CADQuery, you can learn the others in that list fairly easily.

If you can use OnShape, Solidworks, SolidEdge, NX, FreeCAD, ZW3D, Alibre Atom or a few others, then you can pick up any of the others in that list easily. Alternatively, with a lot of work and a fair amount of swearing you can figure out Fusion 360.

Which one you learn first probably dictates what you find easy.
 
Dr.Al":t6ilm3ak said:
I think a lot of it is a combination of what makes sense to your brain and what you're used to.

I agree 100%. It has a lot to do with what you get used to and how you tend to process things. When I watch experienced users working in OnShape it looks like they are working so hard to produce what they do. But I imagine some people would say the same about watching me work in SketchUp.
 
Dave R":xexuv11i said:
When I watch experienced users working in OnShape it looks like they are working so hard to produce what they do. But I imagine some people would say the same about watching me work in SketchUp.

Yep :lol: . I watched a video where you made a model of (if I remember correctly) a coupling. I was seriously impressed by what you can make SketchUp do, but I also spent most of the video thinking "making that bit would be so much easier in a parametric CAD system"
 
Dr.Al":24lafb9g said:
Dave R":24lafb9g said:
...uses OnShape. Very powerful but I fond it exceedingly clumsy and tedious to use. It's so different from SketchUp.

I think a lot of it is a combination of what makes sense to your brain and what you're used to.

I used Sketchup years ago before I had anything else and I managed to model a few things (including the driveway & the steps up to the front door), but I never got on with it. By contrast I picked up most of the parametric CAD systems I've tried quite quickly. I'm in awe of what you do with Sketchup, but I'll stick with CAD.

The impression I've got is that there are 4 main ways 3D packages work.

If you can use Sketchup then with practice you'll get good at Sketchup.

If you can use Fusion 360, then with practice you'll get good at Fusion 360 and, with a lot of work, you can learn to use other parametric CAD systems.

If you can use OpenSCAD, OpenJSCAD or CADQuery, you can learn the others in that list fairly easily.

If you can use OnShape, Solidworks, SolidEdge, NX, FreeCAD, ZW3D, Alibre Atom or a few others, then you can pick up any of the others in that list easily. Alternatively, with a lot of work and a fair amount of swearing you can figure out Fusion 360.

Which one you learn first probably dictates what you find easy.

Dr Al thanks for that useful analysis of classes of cad packages.
I have a long term desire to learn a cad package to use with my milling machine cnc conversion ( still very much a back burner project) so need a route to gcode eventually.
I have failed to learn sketchup adequately and similarly fusion 360 but in the process have a strong desire for the parametric route.
Can you suggest which of your categories might be best for me to try next please?
I use a PC not Mac

Bob
 
9fingers":1ac0f8rv said:
Dr Al thanks for that useful analysis of classes of cad packages.
I have a long term desire to learn a cad package to use with my milling machine cnc conversion ( still very much a back burner project) so need a route to gcode eventually.
I have failed to learn sketchup adequately and similarly fusion 360 but in the process have a strong desire for the parametric route.
Can you suggest which of your categories might be best for me to try next please?
I use a PC not Mac
Bob

I think your best bet would be to try OnShape (disclaimer: I recommend this to most people who want to try parametric CAD, even though I only use it occasionally). It's different to Fusion 360 (which you've already said you didn't get on with) but very similar to most other CAD systems. You could also try FreeCAD, which has the advantage of private models but the user interface takes a bit of getting used to. The tutorials for OnShape are much better though (FreeCAD suffers a little from having a lot of tutorials on the web for older versions that aren't really relevant any more).

I'd also recommend looking at SolidWorks Makers edition (https://discover.solidworks.com/makers) - I haven't tested it as it wasn't available (or at least I couldn't find it) when I was looking around, but it looks to be the same as the professional SolidWorks software for not much money.

A bit more background if you're bored and want to read more of my waffle...

I should note that most of the CAD modelling I do isn't in OnShape, despite the fact I recommend it.

A few years ago I did a trial for about 3 months, comparing OnShape, Fusion 360, Alibre Atom 3D, IronCAD INOVATE [sic], ZW3D Lite, DesignSpark Mechanical, NaroCAD, NanoCAD, OpenSCAD, OpenJSCAD, CADQuery and maybe some others I've forgotten. I also looked at options for "personal" editions of some of the more mainstream ones like SolidWorks but the options were limited at the time. Before I did the trial, I'd used NX, SolidEdge & SolidWorks (but only in a very minor way and I've never been trained in the proper ways of using them). I'm sure that coloured my view in that I wanted a CAD system that worked the way all three of those work.

I wanted something I could do private models with and that unfortunately ruled out OnShape. After lots of umm-ing and ah-ing and frustrations with Fusion 360, I decided it was worth it (to me) to buy one of the cheaper (but not cheap!) options as I wanted the ability to do private models, I wanted to do top-down modelling (designing parts based on other parts in an assembly) and I didn't like Fusion 360 (either the interface or the licence that has to be renewed every year and they can take away whenever they want).

Alibre Atom 3D is a complete waste of money: it offers nothing that FreeCAD doesn't offer and I suspect FreeCAD will overtake it fairly soon (as there are features that Alibre are keeping back for their more expensive offers). DesignSpark Mechanical isn't much better than Atom 3D and charges for a lot of features that should be considered essential. In the end I bought a perpetual licence for ZW3D Lite (which means I can keep using it forever without ever paying again).

I now use ZW3D Lite for most things, but occasionally I'll use OnShape where the privacy thing doesn't matter and I want something that it offers (e.g. better text handling, gear constraints in an assembly, easy-ish scripting, etc). As you might be able to see if you watch the video I posted, the similarity of approach with OnShape vs the other ones in that category mean that I can switch between them pretty effortlessly. I still use NX once in a while as it's on my work PC and again I can switch to that without too much effort.

I also occasionally use CADQuery, but that's perhaps not for the faint hearted (or at least not for non-programmers)...

If I were going through that exercise again, I think it's very likely I would have ended up with SolidWorks Makers edition, but I've bought ZW3D Lite now so I'm not intending to change. If I didn't have the occasional need for things to be kept private, I'm certain that I'd be using the free version of OnShape.

If I were using a Mac (which I know you said you aren't) then the options are certainly more limited, but OnShape and FreeCAD definitely work on Windows, Mac and Linux and I imagine some of the others do too.

There is, of course, a risk with the non-perpetual licence options. Autodesk or OnShape or SolidWorks could decide to withdraw their free or cheap option and then your models become inaccessible. Autodesk have already reduced the functionality of the free Fusion 360 licence a bit. My advice here is the same as my advice with any CAD package to be honest: every time you finish a model (or more often is better!), export that model as a STEP file. It takes a few seconds and will give you a model in a format that can be imported into any other CAD system worthy of the name. You may also want an STL for printing or whatever, but imported STL files aren't editable in any pleasant way whereas STEP files are (you lose the parametric history, but you can still make changes to the design).
 
Freecad can convert stl files back in to something editable.

For work I use autocad 3d and plant 3d. For home I use free cad.

I don't like fusion although i can drive it. Same with solid works which I was a super user for once upon a time along with being a beta tester for autodesk as part of the AUGI. Some of those "features" you are using now are my fault.
Onshape I have no experiance with.
 
novocaine":2qfczax6 said:
Freecad can convert stl files back in to something editable.

There are lots of programs that can, but none of them do a job that is anywhere near as good as just having the STEP file. STEP files represent the object as blocks that are similar to the representation used by the CAD system. STL files represent them as triangular meshed surfaces. You can go from STEP to STL easily and from STEP to CAD easily. You can go from STL to CAD, but the result is never that good.
 
Posting mainly to say thanks to the OP and others for a very informative thread that has had a lot of effort put into it.

I've not used my Ender3 V2 as much as I thought I would. I do have some more ideas for things I'd like to make but the CAD effort involved means it is waiting until I'm really bored.

My working life was Autocad and CAM software. Mostly 2D drawings to dxf for processing. Retired meant a change to sketchup which was painful at first but is now easy. Tried fusion long enough to get a few drawings done with it but never really felt like I knew it. Online tutorials were often showing old versions with different layout or not explaining whatever they thought was obvious but wasn't to me. May have to give Fusion another go.
 
Dr.Al":eao1w0vf said:
novocaine":eao1w0vf said:
Freecad can convert stl files back in to something editable.

There are lots of programs that can, but none of them do a job that is anywhere near as good as just having the STEP file. STEP files represent the object as blocks that are similar to the representation used by the CAD system. STL files represent them as triangular meshed surfaces. You can go from STEP to STL easily and from STEP to CAD easily. You can go from STL to CAD, but the result is never that good.

True. Was just saying that there are options if you failed to safe the step file.
Have to admit that all my stuff is in .dxf for the same reason you use step files. Except those daft wee things that don't really matter like end caps for postal tubes. :lol: (yes I really did print a couple out earlier this week)
 
novocaine":13g0r2fy said:
Dr.Al":13g0r2fy said:
novocaine":13g0r2fy said:
Freecad can convert stl files back in to something editable.

There are lots of programs that can, but none of them do a job that is anywhere near as good as just having the STEP file. STEP files represent the object as blocks that are similar to the representation used by the CAD system. STL files represent them as triangular meshed surfaces. You can go from STEP to STL easily and from STEP to CAD easily. You can go from STL to CAD, but the result is never that good.

True. Was just saying that there are options if you failed to safe the step file.
Have to admit that all my stuff is in .dxf for the same reason you use step files. Except those daft wee things that don't really matter like end caps for postal tubes. :lol: (yes I really did print a couple out earlier this week)

Out of interest, do you know how many applications can read 3D DXFs? I know that 2D DXFs are supported basically everywhere (and are pretty much the de facto standard), but I don't think I've ever seen a 3D one "in the wild" so don't really know how they compare to the support of something like STEP or IGES.
 
All the ones I use. :D
Which to me, is all that matters.

It ain't "my way or the highway" its just my way and it works for me based on the years if doing it for a living" :lol:
 
Speaking as a CAD/CAM noobi, I am struggling with both Fusion 360 and OnShape. I have used Sketchup in the past; some of you may remember my animations of my workshop design. I eventually got the hang of SU, but only sufficiently to do what I wanted to do then.

Now, I want to design for my cnc routing machine which means CAD/CAM so that I end up with a gcode file.

There is a lot of online encouragement to use one of Vectric's products and I confess that I find that easier to draw (they allow you to download a free version before you buy) but I'm still only just learning, but I find it easier than Fusion or Onshape. Vectric's products will walk you through the tool paths that you'll employ on the CNC router. I think Fusion will, too. But I haven't found out fs OnShape can do that yet.

Vecrtic will only run on Windows though, and I can't be bothered to try and set a Windows emulator up on my Mac.
 
novocaine":35osg73u said:
All the ones I use. :D
Which to me, is all that matters.

It ain't "my way or the highway" its just my way and it works for me based on the years if doing it for a living" :lol:

It wasn't a criticism at all: it was genuine curiosity about how widespread the 3D DXF standard had become. I know the 2D one is the best there is for portable 2D drawings and wondered how the 3D one compared.
 
Malc2098":2m91mloz said:
Speaking as a CAD/CAM noobi, I am struggling with both Fusion 360 and OnShape. I have used Sketchup in the past; some of you may remember my animations of my workshop design. I eventually got the hang of SU, but only sufficiently to do what I wanted to do then.

Now, I want to design for my cnc routing machine which means CAD/CAM so that I end up with a gcode file.

There is a lot of online encouragement to use one of Vectric's products and I confess that I find that easier to draw (they allow you to download a free version before you buy) but I'm still only just learning, but I find it easier than Fusion or Onshape. Vectric's products will walk you through the tool paths that you'll employ on the CNC router. I think Fusion will, too. But I haven't found out fs OnShape can do that yet.

Vecrtic will only run on Windows though, and I can't be bothered to try and set a Windows emulator up on my Mac.

That's a shame: I'm sorry it isn't working out for you. I'd never heard of Vectric or their product. Out of interest, do you think you can describe what it is about the Vectric software that you find easy compared to the parametric ones?

If there's anything I can do to help with the parametric sorts I'm happy to try, although if they don't suit you they may be the wrong thing to explore.
 
Dr.Al":1k3gbhbh said:
novocaine":1k3gbhbh said:
All the ones I use. :D
Which to me, is all that matters.

It ain't "my way or the highway" its just my way and it works for me based on the years if doing it for a living" :lol:

It wasn't a criticism at all: it was genuine curiosity about how widespread the 3D DXF standard had become. I know the 2D one is the best there is for portable 2D drawings and wondered how the 3D one compared.

As I said to Mike, please don't take offence at my response, it isn't mean't in that way, I have issues around using the correct phraselogy at the moment. it was genuinely meant to be an off the cuff response with no malice intended.

in the industrial world in which I pretend to work it is the preferred format used by everybody, but I guess we all have autodesk or solidworks so it makes sense there. I have never been handed a step file from a client though.
 
Dr.Al":30ziu8tt said:
Malc2098":30ziu8tt said:
Speaking as a CAD/CAM noobi, I am struggling with both Fusion 360 and OnShape. I have used Sketchup in the past; some of you may remember my animations of my workshop design. I eventually got the hang of SU, but only sufficiently to do what I wanted to do then.

Now, I want to design for my cnc routing machine which means CAD/CAM so that I end up with a gcode file.

There is a lot of online encouragement to use one of Vectric's products and I confess that I find that easier to draw (they allow you to download a free version before you buy) but I'm still only just learning, but I find it easier than Fusion or Onshape. Vectric's products will walk you through the tool paths that you'll employ on the CNC router. I think Fusion will, too. But I haven't found out fs OnShape can do that yet.

Vecrtic will only run on Windows though, and I can't be bothered to try and set a Windows emulator up on my Mac.

That's a shame: I'm sorry it isn't working out for you. I'd never heard of Vectric or their product. Out of interest, do you think you can describe what it is about the Vectric software that you find easy compared to the parametric ones?

If there's anything I can do to help with the parametric sorts I'm happy to try, although if they don't suit you they may be the wrong thing to explore.

Thank you. I shall persevere both with Fusion and OnShape, for a while, it took me a while to get my head around SU, and modelling, so I hope my head will grasp it.

Here's Vectric's products for comparison. They seem to be aimed at the CNC routing machine.

https://www.vectric.com/free-trial

But they only work on Windows, and I've had find, clean and upgrade my late M-i-L's old laptop because we have been a Windows free house for several years now.

Edit! And it's British!
 
It's interesting to see other people's opinions of different CAD software - ten or 12 years ago, as part of my course at university, I was taught Solid Edge by a real, certified instructor and used it on-and-off for a few years. Later on, with the advent of 3D printing, I discovered Fusion360 and took to it pretty quickly, and converted a colleague from an old version of Solidworks too. The workshoppy people at work use Inventor, and the principles are similar enough I can dabble over someone's shoulder.
On the other hand, I don't see eye-to-eye with SketchUp (At all. Honestly.) and find 2D Autocad and its ilk frustrating because in my mind it'd "work better" if it did things like a 2D sketch in 3D parametric CAD - or at least had driving dimensions - and I was also taught and enjoyed "manual" technical drawing so I understand where it's coming from.

Oh, and I have an Ender 3 Pro and love it for all sorts of silly little practical gadgets.
 
canoemoose":3hirvawi said:
On the other hand, I don't see eye-to-eye with SketchUp (At all. Honestly.) and find 2D Autocad and its ilk frustrating because in my mind it'd "work better" if it did things like a 2D sketch in 3D parametric CAD - or at least had driving dimensions - and I was also taught and enjoyed "manual" technical drawing so I understand where it's coming from.

I'm absolutely with you on how frustrating it is to try to do a 2D CAD drawing without the availability of driving dimensions etc. I've looked around now and then for a 2D drawing package that supported constraints, but (apart from something called solvespace that seemed a bit clunky) I largely drew a blank.
 
I set myself the task of designing a small box for the granddaughters to leave their tooth in for the fairy to swap it for a coin. I had their names written on the lid.

I have no background in technical drawing apart fro 7 years Woodwork at school in the 60s.

I have used Sketchup in the past to design my workshop and I've used it to model, then print a 2D drawings of wood that I've mangled. This was the free online web based version, which does not export 3d files.

I've tried it in Vectric's Cut2d, Fusion 360 and OnShape.

As a newcomer to 2D & 2.5D CNC router shaping, I really am starting from scratch, and to get to a a tool path design stage I've found Vectric to be the most user friendly. The other two are free to a hobbyist, but Vectric is a commercial product and only the trial is free.
 
Malc2098":fxvyz7ei said:
As a newcomer to 2D & 2.5D CNC router shaping, I really am starting from scratch, and to get to a a tool path design stage I've found Vectric to be the most user friendly. The other two are free to a hobbyist, but Vectric is a commercial product and only the trial is free.

Sounds like you've found the best option then. How much is Vectric?
 
Cut2D Desktop $149/£110/€135

Cut2D Pro $449/£350/€420

VCarve Desktop $349/£275/€330

VCarve Pro $699/£540/€660

Aspire $1,995/£1,500/€1,800

They are a one off purchase with a lifetime licence for the product.

https://www.vectric.com/purchase
 
Storage for Makita batteries:

makita_battery_holders.jpg

The weird cut-out thing is because the design was pinched from my cordless vacuum starter thing, which has the cut-out for the connector block. Didn't seem worth the effort of changing the design when the hole does no harm.

They're mounted on the bottom of one of my (many) french-cleat-attached ceiling-joist-mounted stuff-holders:

makita_battery_holders_on_ceiling.jpg
 
Andyp":1lh0fmn9 said:
That colour is much easier on my eye than the purple you showed us earlier.

I agree with you. Unfortunately it's one of the more expensive filaments (just because of the particular brand) and the options for relatively muted colours seem to be a bit limited.
 
A while ago, I inherited this drill set (including the drills):

empty_drill_set.jpg

I can't think of any likely situations in which I'll need a 1/4" or 7/16" drill bit, but there are times when an 11.1 mm drill bit (which happens to be 7/16") could be handy as I don't have that size in any of my metric sets. To save me having to consult my big table, I printed this little holder for the drill set:

full_drill_set_1.jpg

full_drill_set_2.jpg

wo decimal places is probably a bit ridiculous for a drill bit, but I figured it didn't hurt. Ideally I would have made it a little bit smaller, but getting very small 3D-printable text can be a bit of a challenge without a nozzle change and I wanted to make life easy.
 
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