Did anyone get around to creating the Maslow Post Processor for FreeCAD? I am having an issue when I export from FreeCAD that all Z values are positive, so it moves the bit around in the air above the wood. It considers 0 to be the bottom of the working piece, not the top. Any suggestions? I have my part and path worked out and it works great in the simulation, but the Maslow won’t run the gcode.
When i ‘pad/extrude’ the material, I check ‘reversed’ so the material is below 0. I have no issues with the gbrl or the linuxCnc post processors.
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I didn’t see that box, where do I find it?
I guess you still can change it in the pad values if you did not do much more operations on the material, but not tested that. FreeCAD can be mean sometimes 
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I always use the Part workbench, never used Part Design. It seems like nothing is the same there. I can’t figure out how to get my part into the Body that is required so I can set the padding. Why can’t I just add a body to my part, FreeCAD? It’s 2 circles, at this point I think it would be quicker to just write the Gcode by hand. I’ve spent 4 hours trying to get it to cut 2 circles in a piece of test wood.
Finally got my part in the Body and now it tells me it can’t set padding because there is no sketch available. So frustrating. I’ve been using FreeCAD for years for 3D printing and never had any issues. But trying to get it to do anything for the Maslow is not working.
I tried a quick test with the part workbench. 2 issues I see:
I can’t set that I’m on the XY plane and 1 of the settings like width should be minus and that is not allowed. I always go the route -> Body -> sketch -> pad -> path
I was hoping to not have to learn an entire new workflow. I might as well switch to a better tool if that’s the case.
So far, I have been able to migrate the Part into Part Design. It’s a pain, and I don’t know if it will work, but I am finally able select Reverse on the padding.
Steps to migrate from Part to Part Design:
- Go to the Part Design workbench.
- Select the whole part (not just a single face or component)
- Click Create New Body and Mark it Active.
- Click the top (surface of the wood you’re cutting) face of the part.
- Click create sketch.
- Click Part Design -> Pad
- Check Reverse.
That seemed to fix the outside of the circle, but the inside it still above plane.
No I tried altering placement and it just moves the bottom plane to match.
That’s a bummer 
I thought moving your part below Z the amount of the material thickness would do the trick. You could give a try on the freeCAD forum, nice guys there too. Maybe there is a setting in the path workbench to set where Z0 is that we don’t know about.
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I’m giving up on FreeCAD for CAM since nothing I do will make the damn Z axis not be positive. Any tools out there that don’t suck?
I created a post hoping someone can help me find a way to keep using FreeCAD, since I’m pretty sure once I find The Trick To It™ it will make sense.
That sounds a bit like “I’m going to scrap this car because it does not run without fuel” 
(sorry)
We have a couple of guys in the forum with experience in Fusion 360
Like I said, if someone can show me how to put gas in it, I’ll try again. I’m not pushing the thing. 
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I have created a Maslow specific FreeCAD tutorial based on all the helpful info I found here and on the FreeCAD forums.
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