3 ms·

Easy-to-use already exists, it's getting it at a reasonable cost that's missing. ArtCAM, for instance, will gladly sell you something in the automobile-priced,

Easy-to-use already exists, it's getting it at a reasonable cost that's missing. ArtCAM, for instance, will gladly sell you something in the automobile-priced, dongle-secured range, that can handle all of the toolpath calculations, tool swaps, etc. (so you don't need to be a machinist to understand what's going to break and what's going to burn, etc.) But if you need $10K software to turn a model into instructions for your $2K mill, there's a bit of a prohibitive imbalance there from a hobbyist's perspective.

dragontamer 12y ago
MeshCAM (what comes free with the Nomad 883) is easy to use... although speeds and feeds still need to be manually inputted. But still, if you break your block of wood because you feed was too high, you just drop down the feed (or increase those RPMs) and spend $5 on another 2x4 block of wood. Or if your RPM was too high and you smell burning, you drop it down on the next run. In the worst case, if you catastrophically fail at those numbers and break say an end-mill ($20 to $50), that's still not that big of a deal. A major mistake / catastrophe still is cheaper to deal with than regular maintenance of say... a Form 1 stereo lithography plastic that costs something like $150 per liter. I'd bet you that MeshCAM (again, free with the Nomad, $200ish otherwise) will create more precise parts than your typical Makerbot stuff anyway. Waterfall + Pencil Finish is more than enough to get the majority of projects done. (Steriolithography from Form1 looks... very impressive though, but the running costs are absurd in comparison) ArtCAM, and other professional toolsets, are probably much better suited for professional artists who need to keep track of the grain of wood and the cutting direction. But... you can ignore the details of wood-grain and still come up with something with far more detail and precision than anything Makerbot can ever hope to do. Basically, you start to care about those minor details with CNC machines because you actually have a machine that has such accuracy that those details matter. Also, $5 wood blocks and $20 leather (Drag Knife on a CNC machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMoRUZnvbXw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMoRUZnvbXw) honestly feel more "artisan" than the $100+/liter plastic that comes out of a Form1.
deleted 12y ago
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dragontamer 12y ago

MeshCAM (what comes free with the Nomad 883) is easy to use... although speeds and feeds still need to be manually inputted. But still, if you break your block of wood because you feed was too high, you just drop down the feed (or increase those RPMs) and spend $5 on another 2x4 block of wood. Or if your RPM was too high and you smell burning, you drop it down on the next run. In the worst case, if you catastrophically fail at those numbers and break say an end-mill ($20 to $50), that's still not that big of a deal. A major mistake / catastrophe still is cheaper to deal with than regular maintenance of say... a Form 1 stereo lithography plastic that costs something like $150 per liter. I'd bet you that MeshCAM (again, free with the Nomad, $200ish otherwise) will create more precise parts than your typical Makerbot stuff anyway. Waterfall + Pencil Finish is more than enough to get the majority of projects done. (Steriolithography from Form1 looks... very impressive though, but the running costs are absurd in comparison) ArtCAM, and other professional toolsets, are probably much better suited for professional artists who need to keep track of the grain of wood and the cutting direction. But... you can ignore the details of wood-grain and still come up with something with far more detail and precision than anything Makerbot can ever hope to do. Basically, you start to care about those minor details with CNC machines because you actually have a machine that has such accuracy that those details matter. Also, $5 wood blocks and $20 leather (Drag Knife on a CNC machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMoRUZnvbXw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMoRUZnvbXw) honestly feel more "artisan" than the $100+/liter plastic that comes out of a Form1.

deleted 12y ago

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