Our team (4152) is working on reducing bottlenecks in our manufacturing process. Currently CAM is our biggest bottleneck. We have multiple CAD designers in onShape. We currently export our files and use Fusion360 for the CAM process to produce gcode for our CNC router. It’s been frustrating trying to use Fusion 360 on Chromebooks so we end up needing to use Windows machines that are becoming scarce in our school. I’m experimenting with Kiki:moto - are there teams that use this for CAM? Any tips and tricks? Thanks in advance for any insight you can add.
Please note - we are exploring other options as well so I’d appreciate any words of wisdom from others.
Kiri:Moto??
No, but I am very intrigued now since our students also use chromebooks
I feel your pain. Chromebooks are the worst piles of garbage ever.
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Thanks for the catch - not sure why I always spell it wrong!
I’ve played with Kiri:Moto but never run code from it. Based on what I’ve seen, I’d be willing to give it a shot as a 3D printer slicer if it fit into my workflow. With a 3D printer, the worst you can generally do is print a blobby, stringy plate of spaghetti.
CNC routers are a different game, with enough power and G-code freedom to break tools, plow through clamps and spoil boards, and collide with anything they can. In this regard, the apparent simplicity and obscurity of Kiri:Moto makes me hesitant. I need to trust that my CAM software truly understands the bounds of my machine and workpiece, cutting and tool parameters, and where and how I’m trying to cut.
We have a many-thousand dollar scrapped part at work (machine shop) that bears this lesson. After dozens of hours of machining, on the very last toolpath, a single CAM issue led to an end mill zipping through the side of the part. Even professional machinists and MasterCAM can make these mistakes, but they’re worth avoiding.
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I totally appreciate your comments. I did some testing today and wrote up some notes. I am leaning to using Kiri:moto for some of the simple tasks that we do repeatedly and using Fusion 360 for our more complex jobs. For training I’m considering a standard part (i.e. L bracket) and creating a program that I can run to see if the gCode they generate matches my gCode.
Notes on using Kiri:moto for generating gCode.
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Our team uses Kiri:Moto for all of our gcode(we have an Omnio x8). It works really well! The simplicity definitly means complex parts are harder to achieve without diving very deep into the system. Took our team only about an hour or two before we were able to use it effectively and generate some gcode.
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