Cut Files to play with

How To
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I use have been looking for ideas and files from Thingsverse, any other sites you guys use to find cool and fun things to cut?

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Note this page is off-line: http://www.shapeoko.com/projects/projects.php
http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/Projects
http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/Online_resources#Project_Design_Sharing_Sites

There’s an archive of dxfs which gets posted to reddit.com/r/cnc pretty regularly also.

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Thank you Will, I’m new and well just a hobbyist for now so a question. A cut file is a cut file no matter if it was done on the Nomadd883 or the Shapeoko correct? I have the Nomad, can I still use cut files from the Shapeoko?

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Sort of.

If any of the links in question were to G-code or .tap files which are movement instructions optimized to a particular machine / endmill, then, yes, they’d be Nomad or Shapeoko-specific — this sort of thing is common in industry, but rare at the hobby level, since the machines are so different, and Grbl lacks support for “cutter compensation” which would allow it to adjust a given file for a given endmill diameter.

Of course for the Nomad/Shapeoko there’s the matter of whether or no designs physically fit ---- there are a lot of things done for the Shapeoko which won’t fit on the Nomad.

Here’s a basic page on file formats which may help: http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/File_formats

In short you have:

  • CAD — design files which are the design itself — in many instances one will need to add additional files to a CAD to allow it to be cut, say for a fixture or other workholding.
  • CAM — these are the files for manufacturing

I think you might find it interesting to make the calipers which I did:

http://www.shapeoko.com/projects/project.php?id=154

The source file is a .svg: http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/File:Tool_calipers_locking.svg — but in addition to it you’ll probably want to design a fixture to hold it in place while it’s being cut. I used MDF: http://www.shapeoko.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=6377&p=53731#p53729 and also had to 3D print a small jig to allow me to file a divot in one of the screws.

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I will note that since this thread was posted, Cutrocket was announced, went through beta, and is now available to everyone:

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