MakerCAM is Back!

[bar]

My favorite free online CAM option was called MakerCAM. It’s was a great free tool for taking a .svg file and generating tool paths from it.

Unfortunately it was written in Flash and when Adobe ended support for flash a few years ago it disappeared.

Thanks to the incredible folks over at the Ruffle project which is a web assembly based flash emulator MakerCAM is back on the internet!

You can play around with it now at: MakerCAM

I also brought back PartKAM which is a different version of the same software. MakerCAM forked off of PartKam I think and I’m not totally sure what the differences are so I figured better to put them both up so we can play around.

Special thanks to @boxomatic for helping to track down the correct .swf files!

[ronlawrence3]

Nice! I didn’t know about this webasm flash player! interesting. I’ve been thinking we should implement the calibration algorithm in C++ or rust and see if webasm is better for that… but on the other hand… not that critical to wait a bit for answers

I remember using this years ago, but the biggest problem with this software is it won’t take my inkscape svgs like some other programs do, but you can save from inkscape into generic SVG too, you just lose inkscape settings.

[clintloggins]

I’m pumped @bar , Makercam was my go to on M1.
This looks to be a great solution to work with on the fly when I dont have my laptop.

Several people in the forum have suggested Estlcam, so I bought the license and it’s been worth every penny. Power packed for the price.

Ive been using:
Adobe capture(for image to svg)
Inkscape as my go to clean up svgs

For cad it’s Onshape for bigger projects (assembly).
I tried kiri:moto in Onshape as cam, but as for now,
Its not even close to Estlcam for me

Ive done the whole fusion 360 bit, but just bogged me down.

[VetterTech]

Hello, I booted up MakerCAM under Firefox, Edge, and Chrome but when I load a simple test box, nothing shows up in the work area (in Firefox a progress bar is shown quickly for file cleanup. I can view the .svg and it is in fact a box. There are no options available for the “save as” in CAD. Here is the SVG (hope it uploads). If someone has the time to try it on MakerCAM I would appreciate it.

[bar]

I think that the key here is that MakerCAM doesn’t automatically zoom to fit your design in the window, but zooming out I’m seeing it there.

I’ve run into this too, especially when a drawing has scaling issues so it loads but it loads HUGE or tiny so its there but just not on the screen

[VetterTech]

Thanks.I am going to watch some of your older videos and community discussions before I ask any more questions on MakerCAM. I notice the aspect ratio is off when I load a simple sqare… I also tried Carbide Create and the aspect is correct there…

[rtadlock]

I used MakerCAM to generate gcode for my first successful cut on the M4, which is great! I’m now trying to import a simple SVG that I generated with illustrated, but I’ve not had any luck. Do I need to use Inkscape to generate SVG files or will MakerCAM import Illustrator created SVG files? The file is just the outline of a cat’s head and it’s showing up like this in MakerCAM:

Maybe I need to use specific settings when exporting? Anyway, I’m up and running and just trying to slowly move to more detailed parts.

[bar]

Great work!

Did you get this figured out? What should it look like?

[rtadlock]

Hi @bar,

It’s supposed to be the outline of a cat head. I don’t have the exact file I used that day, but I quickly created another one using Adobe Illustrator 2024 in a similar manner and am seeing the same issue:

Here is the file as viewed in Chrome:

And here is what i see when I upload the file to MakerCAM:

I will note that if I just create a quick star using the standard drawing tools and upload the file, there are no issues:

I’ve uploaded the two files if you’re interested in chasing down the issue. I’m a CAD user and just started exporting DXF files from the drawings in CAD and going into Easel, so that workflow is working really well for me, but to follow up and maybe provide some data for a fix or at least replication of the issue.

Rob

[bar]

I think that with those .svg files it might be that it’s exporting the shape as a solid and what we want is a path around the outline?

[Aggiehouse]

I think @bar is right here. I tried cutting a filled shape vs outline yesterday and it freaked out. Making the fill color white fixed it right up.

[rtadlock]

The star svg above is the one showing in MakerCAM so I’m not sure about fill having much to do with the issue, but looking at the cat SVG, it appears to be exported as a Path (Paths - SVG: Scalable Vector Graphics | MDN)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<svg id="Layer_1" data-name="Layer 1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 301.11 338.49">
  <path d="M162.29,338.05C63.68,346.27,14.31,238.41,12.59,230.45c-1.07-4.97-1.1-9.82-1.1-9.82.17-7.73,3.41-12.19,2.55-41.34-1.64-55.9-7.47-71.42-12-117.5C.32,44.23-6.48,2.15,20.29.05c21.4-1.68,54.64,43.95,64.25,61.25,8.12,14.61,12.18,30.57,13.75,31.25,1.29.56,17.46-2.85,28-3.5,23.83-1.47,48.64-1.68,72.01,3.43,1.42.31,2.83-.48,3.31-1.85,10.04-28.52,33.47-63.52,56.18-82.08,21.35-17.45,38.97-3.89,41.75,11.25,7.21,39.24-12.71,76.96-14.5,143-.29,10.82.21,18.74.97,25.06,1.26,10.35,3.7,15.26,3.69,25.38,0,0-.01,7.81-2.05,16.86-2.95,13.1-39.62,100.8-125.36,107.95Z" style="fill: #060708; stroke-width: 0px;"/>
</svg>

So by solid do you mean that you don’t have a poly lines ?

Edit: Maybe it’s the way I created the Cat SVG the uses a path type vs a polygon type like the star. Also, I don’t know anything about drawing programs or SVG, so this is likely classic user error.