[Swansea Hackspace] Anyone on the CNC today?

[Justin Mitchell]

On Sun, 2015-02-01 at 19:17 +0000, Ceri Clatworthy wrote:
> That's cool for PCB. 
> But what about from
> CAD 
> I want to cut a sheet of plastic. ..

Well, there are many ways to do things, depending on exactly what type
of cuts are required, and how complex it is.

For simple stuff I prefer to use jscut, you load an SVG (eg from
inkscape), select the areas and the operation types.  I will write a
tutorial for this soon, and probably do a workshop on it.

You can also export gcode directly from inkscape if you have the right
plugins, although i found it a bit harder to use than jscut.

If what you need is contouring the tool to use is probably pyCAM, thats
pretty much all it does, but does it in quite some depth. You would also
need some ball-nose end mills, which we dont have any of.

The other choice is to use HeeksCAD/HeeksCNC, which is tim clarks
favourite, so i will leave him to do a tutorial on that one :)