CNC Workflow: SketchUp, MakerCam, Universal Gcode Sender - 191

there's many different ways to get cutting information from a computer to a CNC machine to actually cut something out and the way I'm going to show you today is a nice workflow that it seems to be working quite well for me and that is to use SketchUp to design what I want to cut maker cam.com to actually create the tool paths for what I want to cut and Universal G-Code sender to send that information to the CNC to actually do the cutting now I've already created a 3D model here in SketchUp you don't have to do a 3D model you can do a 2d model as well but this is basically just a 5.3 in knob and a little Riser block that fits inside this recess so this is the geometry that I want but in order for this plugin to work which I'll have links to all the uh software and plugins in the website article for this but basically the plugin I'm using is SketchUp to an SVG converter so in order to get an SVG out of this we need to have all of our faces that we want to cut on the same plane so this little recess right here needs to be on this face and this face right here needs to be on this face also we can't have a bunch of components here because then you end up selecting all of the faces at the same time when really all we want is the top face so let me both uh select both of these right click and say explode so they are no longer components this is all just model space let's triple click to select all of this M for move and let's click on the top face press up on the keyboard so we can strain to the blue axis and I want this top face to be on the same plane as this top face so now these two are co-planner now I want to do the same thing with this one M for move or push pull grab the top of this face and press up on the keyboard to constrain to the blue axis and I want it to be in this face as well so now all three of these are on the same plane and I can select one hold shift to select the next one and select the third one so this is the geometry that I want to create an SVG file and you need an SVG file for maker cam so this is the plugin create 2D SVG from selected faces and this is the menu that pops up first I want to change this to inches I'm not sure if it really matters but I work in inches you can use millimeters or inches whichever you prefer and a uh save the SVG in the following directory I'm going to change this to my Dropbox CNC and SV G change the file name to uh let's do this a star knob test and we also need to put SVG we have to put the file name here click save so this is going to save it in my CNC folder SVG Star knob test. SVG that's pretty much it click save and it created it the next step is to open up your file in maker cam.com and makercam is a tool that we can use to to create our own tool paths uh and then export G-Code from it so if you're not familiar with maker cam it's super easy and there's a little tutorial up here that will guide you through the process so what I'm going to do is file open my SVG file and this one was a star knob test and that is the SVG file I just created now this is your X and Y AIS this point right here being your 0 0 your home area so what I'm going to do is is actually move these a little bit closer not 100% necessary but it will reduce waste when I go to cut this out now think about how you want this to be cut out and create the tool paths in that particular order that way they're already there for you it doesn't make sense if the bit is going to start here to cut this profile then back come back here to cut this hole then come back here to cut this hole it makes sense to just go in order from where you're starting so the first thing we can do is Select this circle right here this is a/ quarin hole and I'm using a/ qu in uh bit in the the machine so I can really just plunge the bit right here and make that entire pass uh make that entire cut so we're going to use a drilling operation for this because you're just going straight down so cam drill operation and my tool diameter is .25 my target depth I am using 3/4 in plywood but it's not technically 3/4 in it's a little bit less than that so if I just leave it at 3/4 it will cut all the way through and and we are uh the we are Drilling in the center of this path right here we're only going to go down one time so we don't need to do spacing safety height this is how high the bit can um be above the workpiece as it's traveling so we'll go 0.125 in 1/8 of an inch is fine PEC distance if you want to make this hole drilled in five or six different pecs into the material you can do that but for me I've had success just going full depth on one PEC so it'll drill all the way through and I'll slow my plunge rate down to 10 in per minute press okay and that one is set up to be a drilled hole this is a profile I need to cut the outside of this so let's go to cam profile operation from the outside uh quinch tool diameter is correct 75 is my depth that is correct safety height let's go to .125 1/8 of an inch the step down now the step down totally depends on the um your cutting tools that you have I'm using a/ quinch bit and a router which can hog out a lot of material but I'm just going to go with 0.1 in and set the feed rate to 50 that may seem a little fast but I've had good success with it plunge rate is 30 we'll just leave that there after here I need to start in the center of this one again so let's click on this we're going to do another drilling operation just as before 0.25 is my D diameter 3/4 in is my depth we don't need to do any whole spacing because it's just one of them and the PEC distance let's change that to 75 because we're going to do this in one one plunge all the way through and safety height .125 after there this is just going to be a shallow small small small little pocket for this to uh be recessed in that way this drilled hole and this drilled hole will be concentric so let's click that this we're going to do a shallow pocket operation which is just a just hogging out all of this material but we're not going to go a full 3/4 of an inch depth like I said we just want to do just a little bit so let's go 05 in just enough to reference that uh block right here safety height .125 in and my step down uh will just leave it the same as the target depth feed rate let's change this back to 50 and 30 for the plunge that should be fine my last cut will be this outside profile cut so let's go to cam profile change uh leave the tool diameter the same Target depth the same safety height 0.125 step down we're going to go 0.1 probably could go more aggressive than that and I have before but that's just fine 50 for my feed rate and 30 for my plunge rate now like I said all of these are specific to the setup that you do have so don't use mine unless you're using the exact same tooling that I am press okay now we have the the specifications set for our tool paths but we need to calculate them so let's go to cam calculate all and it'll process these now this green arrow uh these green arrows all you see all the way here are where the bit will start the cut and then it will travel along this path you can also select view Cuts up here and you can see where the actual material will be removed I'm using a quarter-inch bit so it's going to remove quite a bit now we want to have some tabs on these pieces because I am cutting these out and I don't want the the cut to complete and then fling this piece somewhere so along this one and actually I'm going to select both of these tool paths like so we got both of these profiles set and let's go to cam uh add tabs to selected now I have find it easier to create way more than what's necessary and then just delete them delete them after you have the ones you have in place where you need them so let's just say the tab spacing is I don't know 2 in tab width this tab width does not take into consideration the diameter of your bit so if you have a/ quar inch bit and you want a quar inch tab uh you have to set this actually to 0.5 in cuz it's going to remove the diameter of your bit so keep that in mind a05 in tab with a/4 in bit will actually leave you with a physical 25 in tab width tab height that's fine we'll just leave it there now let's go ahead and delete the ones we don't want first this this big one right here two is going to be fine so I can delete three on it click and delete click and delete and click and delete now this one is on the edge so let's move it over here so it'll won't be removed uh this is the edge of my plywood here so just position these wherever you want them yeah that that's going to be fine there and from here everything's done my paths are done my tabs are done I'm ready to go to export gcode and remember I started my tool paths in the order in which I wanted them cut so they're already in the proper order however if you want to modify that you can select one of these and press up or down to change it order 1 2 3 4 5 these are already in the order that I want so I'm going to select all of these and Export selected tool paths and from here I can change my folder to my G-Code folder and go to star star knob test click save my G-Code is made and now I can open up uh Universal G-Code sender to actually send the data to the machine first thing in universal gcode center is to open the connection to your actual CNC machine and I always like to make sure that I'm at the home position so machine control reset zero and that creates 0000 0 in my work position in file mode we can browse for the file and it is the star knob test open that up and click visualize and what this will do is it will create a visualization of what about to happen the bit is this yellow piece right here it's going to start every everything that is green is a vertical plunge blue is where the bit is traveling without making any Cuts so it's going to plunge down here and then cut this out and then go in the correct order in which we had it you can see the tabs that are created right here once everything checks out and you know what that looks like I was planning it to look like then you can go ahead and start your machine click ex send and cut the piece [Music] out because these were designed with the Precision of SketchUp and cut with the Precision of the CNC machine this Riser block should fit in here absolutely perfectly with no glue at all a nice snug fit if you did like this video you'd probably like a lot more of my other stuff so check out my website and sign up for my email newsletters so you don't miss a thing there's a lot of stuff on my website that doesn't necessarily make it here to YouTube good luck on your next project and have a great day