Startup questions and comments

Software
1

I installed my Nomad yesterday and ran through the first example very quickly (after hitting a few hiccups which I will report in a duly categorized thread).

My first attempts were to install the software on Linux. I believe I read somewhere in the past that Linux was supported; I had not realized it would be over Wine. I wish I had investigated that.

Meshcam’s installation in Wine went smoothly.
CarbideMotion in Wine succeeded but the program won’t start due to missing dll’s (says wine). I will follow up with detailed debugs if necessary but here is my first question:

Q1. Have you got a CarbideMotion Linux installation guide (wine & Ubuntu) ?

I eventually installed everything on my Mac where things worked rather smoothly.

Note1: took me a while to notice the door “magnet” was actually a sensor. The elements do not match precisely and this may prevent the Nomad from starting - v1 does not notify the user about that and I lost about 30 min

No big deal - using my brain was refreshing :smile:. Other people may or may not appreciate.

I finally upgraded to v2 due to annoying issues such as v5 getting lost when the door was opened after initial connection (the UI was reactive but it would not start the machine even after closing the door). Anyway, v2 is easier.

Making the wrench was really easy. It went into my waste board like everyone else… oh well. I will make a new one later.

The head was easy to set up but MC evaluated the total time to 670 minutes. Down to around 650 by lowering quality. I planned to mill it with the recommended bit (1/8 ballnose #101).

Q2: Is about 11 hours a normal amount of time for milling tutorial example 2 ?

Note2: it would be good to give a rough indication of timing in the examples as “longer” or “shorter” do not mean much - an order of magnitude or a ballpark for a given machine with the stock bits would remove some stress

The head did not complete because my laptop went to sleep after 10 min (0.4% completion) and CM never recovered from it. I had to unplug the USB. I will describe that in a separate “bug report thread”.

Note 3: a bug tracking system would be a great idea

This is it for now. I guess I do not appreciate well enough what MC does but I am sensing some magic in there. I will post additional comments in a feature request thread.

edit: I forgot to say I already love my Nomad
edit2: I corrected the CM version numbers to v1 and v2 instead of v5 and v6 respectively

2

Perhaps the feed rates were too low, I noticed that can happen when they are copied over from the tool defaults. What estimate do you get when you let the Carbide/Nomad wizard (Menu “Tools” -> “Carbide Auto Toolpath”) configure the job?

3

Good point(s)!

I have installed CM v6 (beta) on a Mac. All I get from Menu Tools is “Run Script”. There is not “Carbide auto toolpath”. This is one issue I forgot to add.

The only wizard I found is by clicking “Generate Toolpath” (the button in the pane left of the 3D representation). At the bottom center of the popup, I find a “Use Automatic Toolpath Wizard” button which I use.

Once the wizard completes, MC tells me the rates are indeed copied from some defaults (which I have not found yet) and they are set to 5.0 in. for both the feedrate and plunge rate, equally in roughing, finishing and pencil cleanup (i.e. 5.0 in. everywhere).

With 5.0 in., the total time is around 670 min (11h 10 min) says the wizard.

Once I change those values to 8 in everywhere (which I have read somewhere but can’t find anymore), I get an estimated run time of 410 min (6h 50 min).

What value should I use for renshape ?

4

I finally let the feed rates at 5 inches but changed the roughing increment from .01 in to .1 in (2.5 mm). Not sure this was smart but it cut the milling time down to 160 minutes and did not look to put too much strain on the bit.

Tutorial 2 completed perfectly. Quality is good (to my noob eyes).

Would still be good to have some documentation on recommended rates and step increments for various material. Or is it a trial and error method ?

6

“Run Script” is indeed the other item I see in that menu. Not sure why you don’t have the Carbide/Nomad-specific entry there. The V6/Build 26 version available on this page has it: http://www.grzsoftware.com/dl/.

When you let that configure a job, it inserts different feed rates depending on the material you select.

7

AHA!! I had V6 build 22 for some reason. Upgrading to Build 26 indeed gives me the Carbide Auto Toolpath. Thank you!

Using the Carbide Auto Toolpath yields an estimated milling time of 17.8 minutes using ridiculously large rates (17in plunge and 43in feed). I would never have dared that :slight_smile:

In the interest of constructive issue report, it is quite confising that running the wizard from within the pop ups still sets up a feed rates of 5in. It would be a lot better if both the pop up and the wizard made the machine type selectable via a drop down for instance.

8

Hi there,

I just installed MeshCam on my Windows 10 system. This is MeshCam6 Build 27 and I also have the same issue where under Tools, I only see a Run Script. Can I download the Carbide script separate or use a different build or version?

Thanks