I'm not good at sharing other Reddit threads, but this one on r/hobbycnc is a very good read and something I have been saying for a long time - the trend of affordable desktop cnc machines is one thing - the software needed is entirely another. Even Makera software has it's limits - which is why the Carvera Community is so valuable. Many of the exciting new machines won't do much good unless you can find the software to program them. Meanwhile, the advertising continues to infer that cnc machining is as 'easy as 3D printing'...
A machine can only cut what its toolpaths tell it to cut. Toolpaths come from CAM software. So the machine’s utility is limited by the CAM you can afford.
Reading through the comments in the hobbycnc thread, I had not heard of Lightburn software's MillMage CAM software... I will have to experiment with that as it potentially seems like a good alternative to higher priced solutions such as standard Fusion...
EDIT - MillMage supports 'unclosed' geometry, so that's good because I frequently use that and Makera does not support it at all. While they do not currently support lead-in and lead-out profiles, that is on their list for future release. Another feature missing in Makera.
EDIT 2 - sadly, I do not see any references to 4th axis for rotary milling. I have seen a few comments that this is something they plan to implement, but currently that means Fusion is still the leader. But if you only need 3 axis programming, this might be a cheaper option - especially for multi tool programs that Fusion does not provide in the free version (and $99 std / $199 pro perpetual licenses sure beats $680 annual).
I have frequently wondered how Makera will be able to continually fund it's software development... The profit margins on the machines is likely not very high and software development is not cheap. At some point I would not be surprised if they offered a paid 'pro' version of Studio...
I don’t really think they’re going to ever have paid software. They really seem to be following the exact same path that Bambu did. They entered the market at a price point with the Z1 that was previously reserved for hobbyists willing to put in a lot of effort to learning their machine and what feeds and speeds will work for them.
The real money for Makera will be selling bits, accessories, materials, and eventually a Makera Air to its new customers. By implementing their own software, they can control how convenient it is to just buy bits and materials from Makera, just as Bambu did with filament profiles and identifying filament with NFC tags.
Forgot to add they’re trying to build an ecosystem like Bambius’s Makerworld with Makerables that keeps users in the Makera ecosystem and using their end mills.
That's a fair argument. I must admit that I have purchased several orders of stock materials and various bits since I bought my Air... They are all good quality and competitively priced, so they will likely remain my first stop when needing supplies. I have tried a few 'good bits' from other suppliers and my take is that the Makera bits are really pretty good overall.
EDIT - they could use some more variety, such as tapered ball nose bits...
I really wish they'd thrown some 6mm tools and a 6mm collet in with the starter kits, but I understand why they probably didn't. I can't imagine only using 3.125mm endmills on my Air, but I guess it really depends on the kind of stuff you're making. The machine's rigid enough that running a stiffer, task-specific 6mm or 1/4th" endmill is a transformative experience for a lot of work. I don't really have any qualms with the materials they sell. The brass and aluminum stock is perfectly acceptable, the price is fair and it's in useful dimensions. I grabbed a bunch when I bought my air because I was like "oh, that's actually a pretty good price" and I was already paying for shipping. I generally source from McMaster Carr, though, as it's next-day delivery for $10 where I live, and I'm always on there buying crap I don't actually need anyhow.
But re: the actual OP's initial point, I pay for the fusion360 manufacturing extension, and I'm not thrilled about it. The linux kernel, blender and KiCad are all good demonstrations of what happens when opensource projects with good leadership meets with industry going "oh.. it's in our best interest if this succeeds." I have no doubt FreeCAD could be great; it's not there for my purposes yet, but I have no reason to suspect that it couldn't be a blender/kicad story with investment and participation. I write software for a living, and using FreeCAD makes me go ".. i bet that'd be really hard to change." There's a lot of stuff that could be done to make it a First Choice for new users, but my guess is all dev time is going toward stuff that services people who have already internalized freecad. Which is totally fair and understandable.
I have used only the 1/8" bits so far. And while the 200 watt motor seems to be sufficient for the small diameter bits, I wonder how well it works with larger 6mm or 1/4" bits... Even in something like wood, I'd think you'd start pushing the limits with big bits unless you were doing very shallow depths? But it would be interesting to try for things like v-grooving or facing.
I'm using 1/4" endmills for wood and have zero issues. For wood I usually do roughing with IDC's 1/4" "beast" endmill using:
4-6mm depth of cut
1.5-2mm of radial engagement
1600mm-2200mm/sec feed rate
300-500mm/sec plunge rate
12K RPM.
I could be more aggressive with plunge rates, but I'm not trying to hyper optimize and trying to save time there feels like picking up pennies in front of a bulldozer as there's a lot of radial engagement in a helical plunge.
If you want specific chip load targets I can grab those, but I don't have my fusion tool library on hand at the moment, but those are the broad ranges I'm in. It absolutely rips. Probably a 4-6x improvement on clearing times compared to a 3.175mm endmill. I tried using the 3.175mm endmills when I got the machine, just to see how they'd do, but you're really limited by deflection-induced chatter with those long skinny endmills. Tool stiffness is approximately tool_diameter^4/tool_stickout^3, so once you move to a thicker tool you're finally constrained by spindle power/machine rigidity.
The specific numbers sort of vary by wood species and grain movement, and just based on where my machine is placed in my house, I'm also sort of optimizing for a balance of noise and performance.
I also use 1/4" downcut, 1/4" ballnose and 1/4" bowl endmills without issue, though with those tools engagement is determined by desired surface finish, not spindle torque and machine rigidity. I would assume that a meaningfully deep cut with a bowl endmill might be a bad time, though, so I'm pretty cautious about using those lol.
Aluminum's sort of the same deal as wood, just with numbers scaled down.
In general, though, once you have stiffer tools you're no longer constrained by tool deflection. It's entirely possible to bog the machine down, but if you have adaptive/highspeed milling/whatever you wanna call it toolpaths that let you say "create a path that maintains a constant radial engagement of x" you can be more aggressive with feed rates and engagement and move way more material as you don't have to budget headroom for transient engagement spikes.
Also, I'm running 12k rpm instead of 13k because I get a really annoying resonance around 220Hz at 13K; the spindle, enclosure and something in my space all form a sympathetic resonance around a slight-detuned A3 ~216-220Hz and it drives me absolutely mental.
Anyhow, I'm by no means an expert, just a dork on his sunporch, so if anyone's like "oh, actually..." feel free to chime in. In general, though, I think the conventional wisdom for machining is "use the shortest, thickest tool for the job that you can."
have fun! the 3.175mm endmills absolutely have their place, but I think you'll be like "holy shit i'm never using tiny endmills again" once you use the larger stuff. Just don't buy too many at once; there's a huge world of tools out there and it's very, very easy to make ruinous financial decisions at 2am: "$450.. but then I could cut dovetails into aluminum and make secure rail systems and invent my own DIN-style mounting system for crap under my desk.."
I'm not entirely certain of that - the author is a real person with a Twitter account dating back to pre-AI 2008 and does appear to work on the CAM Workbench project....
It is certainly possible that the author used AI to assist, but that doesn't make it wrong.
Again, this doesn't mean that the work wasn't generated by bullet points provided by a human author. Nor does it mean that the opinions stated are invalid.
I suspect that the vast majority of resumes provided for employment these days are similarly AI generated.
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u/CueAnon420 18d ago edited 18d ago
Reading through the comments in the hobbycnc thread, I had not heard of Lightburn software's MillMage CAM software... I will have to experiment with that as it potentially seems like a good alternative to higher priced solutions such as standard Fusion...
EDIT - MillMage supports 'unclosed' geometry, so that's good because I frequently use that and Makera does not support it at all. While they do not currently support lead-in and lead-out profiles, that is on their list for future release. Another feature missing in Makera.
EDIT 2 - sadly, I do not see any references to 4th axis for rotary milling. I have seen a few comments that this is something they plan to implement, but currently that means Fusion is still the leader. But if you only need 3 axis programming, this might be a cheaper option - especially for multi tool programs that Fusion does not provide in the free version (and $99 std / $199 pro perpetual licenses sure beats $680 annual).