This is how much bigger the piece of material you'll be cutting is than the model on either side. Next you'll select the offset of the stock. If your model is already oriented correctly, just click next, otherwise use the radio buttons to orient it correctly. This seems to simply be a way to specify the projection that will be cut (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Now you will be asked to specify the cutting direction. If your part looks like it's about the right size, click next. I assume the default is inches, as this seems to be the standard for models specified in imperial units. You'll get a nice preview of the part and the determined bounds of the part and you'll be given the option to specify that your part is specified in mm. I'm using a model of a ceramic mold that someone at the space wanted fabbed. Switching to the Windows 7 Basic theme was enough to make it somewhat stable for me.Īfter launching FreeMILL, you'll follow a wizard step by step until you generate your final toolpaths. If it crashes randomly or the preview of your model looks weird you may have to revert to a basic Windows theme and/or disable hardware rendering.
#EDGECAM CHANGE TO STANDALONE INSTALL#
You'll want to do this because the default output directory for the resulting G-code file will be the install directory, which FreeMILL won't have write access to by default. If you're running Windows 7 or Vista, you'll want to run FreeMILL as admin (right click the lauch icon, select "Run as administrator"). I only used the STL support since it's what my source models are in and probably the most widely used format for the hobbyist user and almost all 3D packages support it. FreeMILL supports a few 3D formats, including STL, VRML, Rhino, and VisualMILL (another one of their products). There's also a community site for it here:įirst off I'll walk you through the process of generating toolpaths from a 3D model with FreeMILL. It has its limitations, and it's a little buggy, but it provides a very quick and easy way to go from a 3D model to a physical part. Today I'm going to talk about one such tool you might want to add to your CNC toolbox, FreeMILL from MecSoft.īasically, FreeMILL can best be viewed as a nice script for taking a 3D model and creating a simple set of toolpaths for reproducing it on a standard 3-axis CNC mill.
#EDGECAM CHANGE TO STANDALONE HOW TO#
Because of this, its a better strategy currently to learn the set of tools that are available to you, and how to work within their limitations. When it comes to free and/or open source CAD/CAM tools, I have yet to run into any packages or tool chains that are particularly full featured, easy to use, and glitch free.