Technical Drawings or models for How To's/Tutorials

I thought about posting this as a reply to one of the other threads, like a Weekend Project or the Bamboo Clamps, but I didn’t want to derail any of those discussions. This is probably a community ‘Feature Request’ more than anything.

@ApolloCrowe, when posting projects, tutorials, accessories, or mods, would it be possible to include either a technical drawing or a file that could be used in other packages (STEP, dxf, dwg, etc.)? I understand fully that this is not something Carbide Create can currently output, so I’m not sure what the workflow would have to be to accomplish this. I am an XXL user that moved on from using CC for a slew of reasons. For one, I currently use Universal G-Code Sender (Carbide Motion has trouble with accelerations and short moves), so it’s a real bottleneck to have to make something in CC, export it to CM, then save out the actual g-code for use with UGS. On top of that, my job affords me a copy of Solidworks Pro, so I’m far more comfortable designing parts in that environment.

With a technical drawing, I could easily and rapidly recreate posted projects in Solidworks. A file would be even easier still. I will be posting some of my own projects in the near future and will follow my own advice so people can follow along in the environment they are comfortable in. :slight_smile:

FWIW, I always start a project by drawing it up in a drawing program — sometimes I’ll simultaneously model in OpenSCAD for things which warrant 3D modeling. Actually working on a technique where a single driver file will work w/ Asymptote and OpenSCAD.

For proprietary tools such as Carbide Create, it should be possible to extract a drawing by:

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One of the things I’ve tried to avoid is using Carbide Motion as a step for conversion, but the method you mention makes sense. I’m generally connected to the XXL via Universal G-Code Sender, homed and ready to cut, but filtering anything through Carbide Motion requires that I first connect to the Grbl board, meaning I have to disconnect from UGS. That part would be far less painful if an active connection to the machine wasn’t necessary for basic file I/O.