Can someone give me some insight into MakerCam?

I am just about half way through the assembly of my Maslow. I repair and maintain 3,4 and 5 axis CNC machines. I know almost nothing about how to program them. In playing around with MakerCam I am finding out that it is limited in what it can do or I have no idea what I’m doing. Probably both. Does it have the capability of taking something like 3 circles linked like a chain, making them a single piece, like a snowman so it only cuts the outside perimeter?

You should be able to cut both in and outsides, first cut the inner then the outer.

I still need to learn this myself. I expect that there should be an option to select in what order the shapes have to be cut out

MakerCam is very primitive. I would say that you have probably already outgrown
it :slight_smile:

what do you use to design your objects? I would suggest that you look at Onshape
and Fusion360 to see if either of them makes sense to you, they give you a LOT
of capability

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I will try to help here as much as I can. CAD is the design side the drawing representing the product you wish to produce. For instance I have used TinkerCad to make a simple SVG file. The SVG file is then run through CAM to describe the tool path as instructions for the CNC machine. So it’s a combination of skills. MakerCam is a free option for CAM. You can set up your 3 circles a 3 separate paths or one “part or assembly” , it is up to you to choose inner, outer, or other cut. It is possible to to have one tool path as an outer cut.

I would direct you to look up my friend Winston Moy on youtube. He has tutorials. His work is not specific to the Maslow but learning CNC. I feel he is thorough yet practical.

Hope this helps you.

Thank you

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Try Easel, http://easel.inventables.com/users/sign_in
You have to register for a free account, no credit card! It will do that type of cutting and generate the Gcode that doee work with Ground Control. Plenty of videos on how to use it.

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