Opening .DXF file in Carbide Create

I created a 3D object in FreeCAD that I want to carve with my Shapeoko 4XL. I exported the file to a DXF file in FreeCAD. When I try to bring it into CC by selecting open and the .DXF file all I get is a message box the says “Error” and nothing else.

Has anybody else had this happen?

Please post the file here and we will look into it with you.

Most likely Carbide Create only recognizes 2D dxf files, and not 3D dxf files.

Where/how are these defined?

The Wikipedia article on AutoCAD DXF notably lacks the text “3D”:

David did say he created a 3D object, and exported a dxf file to cut from.

Attached is a 3D dxf of a torus, generated in Autocad 2013.
Enjoy.

Torus.dxf (122.5 KB)

Here is the file.

RosetteAssy-Assembly.dxf (4.8 KB)

If .DXF is not the file format to use, what format should be used to import a 3D CAD file into Carbide Create? My options in FreeCAD are: 3mf, amf, iges, oca, csg, scad, step, smf, x3d, gltf, glb. There are a bunch of others, but they are for analysis functions in other programs. If anyone else is using FreeCAD to design I will upload the native file so you can look at it.

If you have Carbide Create Pro you can import 3D data as an STL file.

That said, if you are using FreeCAD, why not use the native Path CAM Workbench?

When I open that DXF in LibreCAD it doesn’t show anything:

and when I export it as an SVG, I get:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:lc="https://librecad.org" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" width="0mm" height="0mm" viewBox="0 0 0 0">
    <g lc:layername="0" lc:is_locked="false" lc:is_construction="false" fill="none" stroke="black" stroke-width="1"/>
    <g lc:layername="none" lc:is_locked="false" lc:is_construction="false" fill="none" stroke="black" stroke-width="1"/>
</svg>

which doesn’t have any path information, which seems to match with the DXF — it’s only 712 lines long, and none of the lines seem to have any sort of geometry — what does FreeCAD show if you quit and then relaunch and then import this DXF into a new workspace?

If you don’t use Carbide Create to create the G-code for the Shapeoko what post processor do you use? That’s my concern using FreeCAD Path to create the G-code. Will a generic GRBL post processor work with the Shapeoko controller?

Yes, our machines use Grbl as their firmware, so that should work — I would suggest testing incrementally in a piece of scrap, and using a G-code previewer to verify files at least at first.

Thanks, I’ll try your suggestion.

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