[ger21]

Your objects need to be either circles, polylines, or 3D polylines. If they are regular lines, you'll need to use PEDIT to convert them to polylines.

[nego_0]

Your objects need to be either circles, polylines, or 3D polylines. If they are regular lines, you'll need to use PEDIT to convert them to polylines.

Roger that,
i just noticed this. Sory about that. AWSOME program man.!!! works great(nuts)

[Lood]

I am new 2 Mach3 and are looking for a g-code generator out of autocad for 3D drawings. I read one of your posts and you had a link but the link does not work. Any chance you can share it with me?

[ger21]

The link is in the first post.

This macro does not work with 3D models, though. It creates g-code from polylines and circles. There's lots of info in this thread, if you read through the whole thing.

[harryn]

Thanks for all of the hard work to do this software. My brother is attempting to learn autocad, and I am attempting to build a router. Between the two of us, we might be able to build something useful.

Harry

[ger21]

Let me know if you need any help. I really need to do some tutorials.

I'll probably be updating this in a few months to support multiple tools and toolchanges, since I'm setting up my machine with an Auto Zero setup which will make it much easier to run programs with more than one tool. Right now I just use one tool per program.

[harryn]

Hi, that's a great idea. I have sort of followed your idea of having both a router and drill on my setup. Unlike yours though, I have both of them in one Z motion head. Auto tool change is a neat feature, but I am not anywhere close to that yet.

I tried to get both the drill and router to have the axis line up in at least the Y axis, but so far there is still an offset. I suspect that there always will be. My plan is to just be able to know where each is, and go from there.

I am still reading through this thread to see what is viable. Most of what I do is sheet work and some straight edging anyway, so I will probably mostly run this thing with g code and a pendant anyway. Long term, knowing how to actually do 3 D carving would be nice, but I might cheat and just beg, borrow, and buy some 3D carving code as needed. I don't want to add the delay of buying and learning CAD / CAM to the start time of the router use.

[ger21]

I don't want to add the delay of buying and learning CAD / CAM to the start time of the router use.

That's why I would always recommend learning CAD and CAM well before the machine is done. I've seen countless people here build a machine, then have no idea how to use it.

[joy13975]

Gerry,
Thank you very much for making this free and available, really.
I tested it with gcode simulator and turned out awesome
However I have a question that I must ask:
Is this open source ? (looks not ...)
It came in need that I have to write a program to convert dxf to nc
(for educational purposes only I swear), and I was hoping that somewhere would provide the calculations, or maybe conversion samples.
Any hint on this question will be very much appreciated !
Thanks again, Gerry, for this ac2gc and your great responsibility !
Oh ya you set the max depth to 0.2 making the gcode go 3 rounds...

[ger21]

Is this open source ?

No.

The only tricky calculations that get done are finding the arc center (I,J) using the polyline bulge. Everything else is just get the vertices of the polyline, and write them to the g code.

A dxf to g-code converter would be more difficult, because you'll need to parse the dxf file. ANd decide what entities you'll support.

PM me with any questions you have. I'll answer them if I can.

[joy13975]

Alright, thanks for answering me so quickly.
Yes it would be more difficult to parse the dxf file but erm that's the only thing I know of, might need to learn how to VBA-it..

[Lood]

Gerry,

I am trying to cut a slot and do not know if the macro has a special trick. I tried the two half circles with conecting lines. Converted it to Poly lines but the gcode is not correct. Tool path shows a circle with some random lines in Mach3.

So my question is does the macro support cutting slots? If it does what am I doing wrong? if it is line then it would cut the outside of the line if it is a hole it would cut the inside but ........... I don't know I am 2 new to CNC.

My slot is 3mm deep 6mm wide and 15mm end to end at 45 deg angle. Cutter is 4.74mm

Any help will be appreciated. It is an awsome macro I use it all the time but this is my first slot. Well could have been LOL

[ger21]

Can you post a .dxf so I can see what you're trying to do?

[Lood]

It is a simple 5mm hole through a 6.5mm base with a 6mm slot at 45 deg.

Thanks for your help.

[Lood]

Gerry,

Just discovered that Mach3 is corrupt. Gave me a blue screen at the end of running a tool path and now all my tool paths are jumbled on top of one another. Even those that were fine before.

I reinstalled Mach3 and blew away all my config so ............ I need to reconfigure.

I would still like to hear from you about the slot but I think I was barking up the wrong tree there.

Thanks for your help.

[ger21]

Just offset it to the inside by the tool radius, and use the offset lines, like this.

[Lood]

Aaah got it.

Thanks for your help

[carsluTT]

glad i found this post, would be great to create g-code right from autocad. is there a link im not seeing? the like at the start of this thread isn't working. id love to give this a try in my free time.

thanks

[ger21]

AutoCAD 2 G-Code

[Dan85]

Hi mate this looks good to me as i like modelling in acad and microstation and can easily move stuff from microstation to acad. will it work with ACAD 2010/2011? also am i able to generate g-code from a 3d solid? most of the components i want to design and ultimately build are comparatively simple and would be 3-axis at most for the time being will this macro do 3-axis gcode? im new to all this so forgive any stupid questions. cheers.

p.s. this cadcode you said you used can you give me some more detail on that?

Cheers mate

p.s.s. the components im looking to manufacture are going to be alloys for motor cycles and cars.