[BlueBird1337]

Hi !

First post on the forum

I have a small shop, i do machining and gunsmithing. (In Canada)
But a want to upgrade a little bit.. so i want to buy the Tormach 1100 parts maker.
I don't have any experience with CNC machine. All my machine are manual/DRO.

And..

Im a Linux user, and free/open source software user... I presently study FreeCAD to create and design some parts.
When a listen videos on Youtube, about PathPilot, the guys exports .TAP file.

My question is how a can make .TAP file ?

I know .TAP file are g-code. But there is my problem, i miss the step between FreeCAD and PathPilot.
My .SVG or .IGS file are not g-code, and FreeCAD dont write how the machine have to move.

Im confuse. Can you help me ? Thanks

[awerby]

There's a step you're missing between CAD and G-code; it's called CAM (Computer-Aided Machining). That's where you tell the machine what tool you're using, how fast you're going, how finely and deep you want to cut, and customize the code to your particular machine (that's post-processing). There may be a good, free, open-source Linux-based CAM program out there someplace, but I've never seen it.

[BlueBird1337]

Oh i understand now thanks you.

May be the best solution is to use Windows..

Fusion360 is a CAD and CAM tool right ? So i can design and CAM my parts to create g-code right ? Thanks

[brianbonedoc]

Oh i understand now thanks you.

May be the best solution is to use Windows..

Fusion360 is a CAD and CAM tool right ? So i can design and CAM my parts to create g-code right ? Thanks

Exactly. Most of us use fusion so you will find ample help here.

[rodw]

You really should go with LinuxCNC if you know Linux. There is a reason why Tormach CommandCNC and others have moved to the LinuxCNC platform. There is no reason why you can't generate LinuxCNC compatible gcode from Fusion360. Gcode is fairly generic but LinuxCNC does a couple of thing different to Mach3. eg. TAP files are .NGC files but it should not be hard to teach your post processor to do that too. LinuxCNC has a very clear development path unlike Mach. There's stuff I'm doing that is only possible in high end commercial CNC environments and way beyond Mach's capability. There are other commercial systems out there on the Windows platform but they are forever working around the weaknesses of the OS.