Meschcam and V-bits

[Cicero (Steve)]

How do you add a v-bit to Meshcam? The only options appear to be for ball and end mills.

And does anyone know of any GOOD tutorials for using Meshcam? Please don’t suggest the worthless ones by C3D and grzsoftware.

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

My understanding is that MeshCAM doesn’t support V endmill geometry.

What are you trying to do that is not covered by the tutorials which you have found?

Could you post a file which you are having difficulty with?

[Cicero (Steve)]

Just trying to figure out how to use my Nomad, Will…I’ve owned it for 2 years and haven’t been able to figure it out yet.

All I’m trying to figure out now is how to engrave (or I guess I should say route out) some small text…so it looks either indented or raised in the material. For the most part, I figured out how to do it in Carbide Create, however, a 1" x 1/2" area that is 0.1" deep took 4 hours. There is just no way that it should take that long.

So I figured my best bet would be to find a new CAM program and since the Nomad comes with Meshcam, I thought that I would try that first. But if you can’t use a v-bit with it, then that’s a waste of time to learn. So I guess I’ll look for something else.

[NewToThis (Peter)]

@Cicero

Just trying to figure out how to use my Nomad…I’ve owned it for 2 years and haven’t been able to figure it out yet.

I’ve got no hope with my XXL, then

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

Please provide a file or an example of what you are trying to do — dimensions, text, &c. and we’ll work up a step-by-step tutorial for both Carbide Create and MeshCAM.

Do you use Windows or Mac OS X?

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

I worked up a bit of a tutorial on text and sizes and various toolpath options at:

Setting text (or insetting it)

When setting text there are a couple of options, depending on material, tooling, &c. Consider a 1" x 1" area with text (but which one wants to cut an 0.5" tall area out of): [image] Zooming in the tittle the text is sized so that: [image] only a tiny endmill would work: [image] Enlarging the circle to a size which can be cut with the smallest endmill which Carbide Create sells we see that it is much larger then the smallest details: [image] Fortunately, a V Carving toolpath is not s…

If you’ll let us know the specifics of the difficulties you are having we’ll do our best to assist.

To work with MeshCAM we’ll need to know what platform you are on, and what you would like to use for a CAD solution — I don’t use many, so would likely need to do an equivalent design using one of the applications which I do use.

Please note that we have a standing offer — if you get stuck on a file or project send it in to support@carbide3d.com and we’ll do our best to work through things with you — that’s where most of our tutorials come from.

[gdon_2003 (Guy Donham)]

Although you have paid for MeshCam you could use the free Carbide Create and that will work with your Nomad for some projects or parts of projects.

[Gerry]

MeshCam is free for Nomad owners.

[Cicero (Steve)]

OK…I’ll send an e-mail to support asking for a tutorial.

Thanks