I am a high school teacher teaching an engineering course. I have a student who has designed a model in fusion 360, and would like to mill it using the snapmaker (we have been very fortunate to receive a donation). His idea is essentially a small wooden tray that houses some wireless charges so he can just place his devices (phone, airpods, watch, etc.) on certain areas to charge that device. As such, he is milling out some areas the essentially have filleted edges. He has the design of the tray in 3D in fusion 360, but of course he is only milling out on the faces of it. I am thinking the best way to do this would be relief mode, but I am not entirely sure. If we were to generate the toolpath off a greyscale image though, would we be able to use the ball end? the manual only mentions the v-bit for relief mode. Thanks in advanced for the help, and sorry if this is a silly or repeat question. Iāve been googling away and canāt find much.
@mroveto if the design is a 3D model, I think you can use Fusion360 to have it carve using the model instead of an image like a grayscale. I use Vectric Aspire because I own the license, I know Aspire has this feature and Iām pretty sure Fusion360 does too. Are the faces part of the model and youāre carving them on a tray thatās already made? Or are you carving the faces from a separate image?
The bit you use also depends on what the design is, without seeing that design I canāt really advise exactly what one to use. Whatever one you use though you will have to generate a toolpath. A toolpath wonāt generate solely from importing a grayscale. Iāve also never used Luban for CNC so I donāt know if it limits the type of bit for relief mode, Snapmaker has a tendency to make things too confusing, there is no such thing as a ārelief modeā in other CNC software, itās just a type of cut/toolpath and Snapmaker calling it a mode tends to cause confusion when people venture outside of the basic software.
Have you seen this for using the CAM features inside fusion? Hopefully this will serve as a jumping off point for additional research on the CAM tools in fusion360.
I was hoping to explore it a bit with Luban, but from everything Iām reading it seems like generating the the paths and setting the model up for milling is better accomplished in fusion than with luban. Iāve been trying to stick with snapmakerās custom software one because I already have the software and then I wouldnāt have to go through the tech dept to get more (basically to avoid bureaucracy lol) and two being overly cautious about potentially damaging the machine in some way. I will look in to this though.
It is a full 3d model of the tray (I am getting the studentās stl file for reference), and I know I do need a ball end for the type of pocket the student wants to cut out. I was just not sure if snapmaker recommended or allowed use of a ball end bit for relief mode since part of their setup guide specifically mentions using a v-bit. Again, being very cautious with the machine and potentially damaging or voiding warranty or repair or st since it is a tool for our students.
If you are trying to use Luban because of IT restrictions Iām pretty sure itās doable.
Have you seen the full CNC āmanualā? Although it references the quick start manual which isnāt terribly useful either, but it does indicate .STL files are supported for CNC.
It would probably be best to use an .STL file (3d model), which would contain the exact geometry to cut, and not use relief mode of a grayscale 2d image
Hi sorry for the delay. Thank you so much for this info though! We are proceeding using fusion for now since the student has the exact geometry that way as you said. Iāll let you know how it goes.