Solidworks Cam?

CAD (Design) Software SolidWorks
1

Hi everyone, there have been a few previous posts talking about Solidworks Cam but I did not find any concrete answers.

My day job is a Mechanical Engineer and I use Solidworks all day everyday. We have Solidworks Cam as apart of our license and there has been some interest from our machine shop to also use it also for our production machines. IE I have some motivation to learn the CAM side.

Are there any downsides for me using (FREE as its apart of my work) Solidworks? Other than the complexity?

Has anyone successfully posted using the Hawkridge Shapeoko post and got it to work on the OF?

Thanks all!

2

Hi Brandon,

See my post here. Hope this helps!

1 Like
3

Hey Brandon,

I found a PP for SW on the BuildBotics GitHub.
Haven’t tried this myself, so if you test it please let me know how it goes!

Good luck!

4

Brandon, Did you get your OF to work using Solidworks CAM? I am in the exact same situation as you and have the same background. I bought a machine for my business and use Solidworks everyday so it makes sense to just use the CAM portion if Solidworks CAM can kick out the correct GCODE.

Please post an update on your progress and what you had to do to make it work.

5

Hey Ryan, I did not. But I haven’t spent a lot of time trying either.

The work flow I am using has worked really well.

  1. Design parts and assembly in solidworks to ensure aesthetics, proportions, and fits.
  2. Export out profile DXFs
  3. Import to VCarve (I’m currently just using VCarve Desktop)
  4. Export GCode to Onefinity.
  5. After test run, tweak parameters in VCarve.