4 axis CAM between Rhino(mac) and DIY mill for mechanical alu parts

[PropellerHat]

Hi everybody. I have been designing my first mill for some time and studying about the workflow for producing parts like gears and cooling blocks and such from aluminium. I have Rhino5 for mac and at my customer's office I use Inventor. So far I have built big 3D printers and I have been interested deeply in cnc for years, so I'm not completely lost in here, but in need for advise on the programs to use in realising my desings out of metal instead of plastic. Fusion360 looks great (probably easy to get in since Inventor is already in almost daily use) but the feasible version does not contain 4 axis milling. I guess I could go around the problem with "manual" A or B axis, but is it a good idea? Rhinocam would be interesting too but Im a mac user (damn what a curse in cnc world)

Do you have a missing link to put between either Mac Rhino and a DIY mill or fusion360 basic version and the same diy mill to get (indexed) 4 axis workflow?

Or any other feasible idea? Im trying to get out of my client's office and get a workshop to do my own stuff for living, and there's very little money for anything, as usual

Thanks!

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[awerby]

I'm afraid that if you want to buy an affordable 4-axis CAM system, you'll have to bite the bullet and leave the MacOS bubble (sorry about that mixed metaphor). But you probably can run a version of Windows on your Mac, using Parallels or whatever. Either that, or just buy an older Windows computer that will come with a Windows OS and probably be cheaper than buying Windows for your Mac. Once you've got something that will run Windows, VisualMill is probably going to be your best option, if you want to make mechanical parts. Unless you get the Windows version of Rhino, RhinoCAM won't work, but Mecsoft's VisualMill is the same program in a standalone version, so you;d just have to import the files into it to generate your toolpaths. We can probably save you enough on VisualMill to pay for a pretty good Windows computer - they aren't all that different from Macs these days, if you can handle the jolt to your identity...

[ger21]

A friend of mine runs Solidworks and Visual Mill on a mac.. Not sure if he uses Parallels or Bootcamp.

[louieatienza]

I don't think the computer requirements are high since Fusion360 runs mostly on the cloud, so you should be able to get a computer relatively cheaply to run it.

As to 4-axis milling, there is one guy in the OneCNC forum that makes pretty complex parts for mountain bike companies, and he does it by manually repositioning parts and using low-melting-point metal to "hold" the part in as he machines the other sides.

[ger21]

I don't think the computer requirements are high since Fusion360 runs mostly on the cloud

Fusion doesn't run in the cloud, it just saves files there. You can run it without an internet connection for up to 6 months now I think.

[PropellerHat]

Thanks for the replies!

Yes I have been thinking should I get an old/cheap PC and do it that way, but I want to carry my laptop home with the work in it. Often I have to stay put for my kid and the "office" side of the work has to follow, and a complete change to PC is not my cup of tea allthough the "coolness" of macs was gone 10 years ago.

There looks to be no good solutions around.

[louieatienza]

Thanks for the replies!

Yes I have been thinking should I get an old/cheap PC and do it that way, but I want to carry my laptop home with the work in it. Often I have to stay put for my kid and the "office" side of the work has to follow, and a complete change to PC is not my cup of tea allthough the "coolness" of macs was gone 10 years ago.

There looks to be no good solutions around.

I think running Parallels on an older Mac may not be too much fun... Though BootCamp would probably be better, but you'll have to reboot each time you need to run an app for a specific OS.

[PropellerHat]

Booting would be no problem. I am leaning towards Fusion 360 and forgetting about the 4th axis :I

Maybe just run A axis with a separate controller like indexed and having the different sides of the work as different files. Does somebody know some problems with that kind of a solution? I'm thinking of a system that has preset angles and it would turn the piece to those positions by a push of a button for example.

[Stutank]

Depending on what you need the 4th Axis for, You might find that writing manual G code is the way to go. Typically little code is required for gears etc, and using parameters makes simple to change from 1 gear to another. For example this code produces Helical gears on my Mill.

(Centaur#1-24LH.TXT 25/06/2017 ref Helical Gear.xls)
(Helical Gear L.H. - Pn = 28.22 N = 24 Helix = 36 OD = 28.5 Lead = 115.46)
(Std setup with cutter on inside of table, A axis Horizontal Head at 36 Deg)
(X0 = clear at Start. Y0 = Axis of Rotation. Z0 at Center height)
(Mtrl = Mild Steel 28.5 dia. 130 long 70 out - turn around for 2nd set)
(26/6/17 1 set 3 x 12mm. 27/6/17 1 set 36 Mins)

G00 G49 G40.1 G17
G80 G50 G90 G98
G21 (mm)

(This Program Has No Z moves)
#1=24 (N - Number of Teeth)
#2=28.5 (Outside Dia of Gear)
#3=1.94 (WD - Whole depth of Teeth)
#4=3 (Clearance in Y)
#5=50 (Length of Cut inc Clear in X)
#6=155.90 (Helical cut in A to match #5)

M6 T22
M03 S200
M8 (Flood On)

G00 A-10
G00 X0 Y[[#2/2]+#4] A0
G91 (Set Incremental mode)
M98 P1 Q#1
M5 M9 G90
M30

O1
G01 Y[0-[#3+#4]] F30 (Feed to depth Y)
G01 X[0-#5] A#6 F120 (Do Cut)
G01 Y[#3+#4] (Retract Y)
G00 X#5 A[0-#6]
G00 A[360/#1]
M99