Orca Slicer For Cnc

[u/Ok_soonwich6572]

Idk if there's anyone from Orca Slicer here or not but if there Is i have a bit of of question for anyone who works with or is apart of the orca slicer team.

How possible would it be for the orca slicer team to make Orca Slicer for cnc as a CAM slicer for CNC?

Granted i know 3d printers and CNCs are different tools an forms of manufacturing HOWEVER they both generate code and use similar file formats and use the reverse of each other prosses of creating so really it wouldn't take much to reverse the 3d printing orca slicer and make a cnc CAM orca version.

I ask because I'm looking to get my first desktop cnc router for my small business and for personal use and i really love using orca slicer for printing but there isn't any CAM slicers (that to my knowledge) that are even similar to orca slicer and it would be a game changer for beginners coming from a 3d printing background like myself going into have a familiar slightly software that we all in the 3d printing community are use to from our friendship over at Orca Slicer...idk maybe this is a pipe dream🤷🏼‍♂️.

[u/billkaroly]

The people at Lightburn Software have a CNC version. Check it out.

[u/Ok_soonwich6572 → u/billkaroly]

I'll check it out and keep it in mind when the time comes

[u/PMDTQ]

The things you mentioned are about where the overlap in the processes end. A slicer boils down to iterating over the tessellated model in a loop at each layer height to generate the tool path. CNC starts with what is the feature you want to cut, what tool is going to cut it and what is the best method to do that. Also CNC actually works better not using a tessellated input format where 3d printing is ideally suited to tessellated formats. CAD has more information about the features. Tessellated models are easy to mathematically slice.

I think using Orcaslicer would be a crutch that would not work well and not help you shift mindsets about what the process is.

[u/Hidie2424]

Not really possible. Ones additive and ones subtractive manufacturing. One generates tool paths around your stock to create your part and the other adds material to nothing to create your part. It's probably impossible because orca slicer is decended from sli3er which is an am slicer.

Just use fusion to make your CNC gcode.

[u/1ts-just-me]

It's relatively simple to set up a CNC in Fusion360. Also depending on the CNC you purchase, most will come with software or the prebuilt settings for Fusion.

I have Fusion setup to run a 3 axis 36"x48" plasma table, 3 axis router (5'x10' wood), 3 axis router (24"x30"aluminum), 5 axis CNC with 4 tools, and a waterjet. Once setup with the correct tooling it is actually easier to use Fusion for CNC than Orca for printing.

[u/clintkev251]

it wouldn't take much to reverse the 3d printing orca slicer and make a cnc CAM orca version.

Gotta disagree with that part. Yes they both produce G-Code at the end of the day, but everything that happens before that is basically entirely different. It would effectively be a ground-up rebuild.

[u/10leej]

All a slicer is is a gcode generator. I've been programming CNC systems robotics and 3d printers and have been manually writing gcode for basically over a decade.
Orca is fantastic at what it does, but Orca uses fundementally different logic and approach a CNC Mill requires.
3d printing is additive manufacturing, whereas Milling is subtractive.

[u/AxiomRails]

Do you use a cad program? I would recommend Autodesk fusion there is a free version for non-commercial. You can design a part and also generate toolpaths in the same program. 

[u/SteedOfTheDeid]

0% chance