Resources for Opensource CAD & CAM systems

There’s a topic for commercial things, but I thought it would be nice to have a thread for the various opensource options.

Some things which I’ve found when researching, and am considering using include:

Gridfinity — since the initial video:

this has grown to a huge system:

(which I’m surprised has thus far only had one mention here)

Boxes.py

(really surprised that hasn’t become more popular — maybe if it weren’t so focused lasers?)

FreeCAD workbenches

One notable one is:

curious if there are others which folks are using, and what other resources folks would recommend.

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And of course, a self-insert/bit of shameless self-promotion…

I’ve been working on:

which uses https://pythonscad.org/ (which is finally getting integrated in, though not enabled by default, in OpenSCAD) — has anyone tried it? Anyone have a project which it might be suited to?

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it’s very much not for everyone. But if you happen to be a coder at heart, and you love Javascript…

I love it. I’ve been able to do a couple of fun things with it (the .jscad files)

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And on the CAM side, Kiri::Moto is worth looking at:

it does slicing for FDM or SLA type 3D printing, makes tool paths for CNC Mills or Lathes, and also supports Laser cutters, Water Jet, Wire, and drag knife cutters. All in your browser, no install required, although it does have an electron version.

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Nice! (which shows the benefit of programming)

One esp. interesting thing about JSCAD (apparently it’s either changed names or there’s been a fork?) when it was openJSCAD was its inclusion in maker.js (which again, tool, rather than tool accessory) — still surprised that the latter has only been discussed 4 times here:

https://forum.makerforums.info/search?q=maker.js

re: Kiri:Moto, I was thinking more tool accessories rather than tools themselves — are there any cool plug-ins for it?

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While @stewart is active here, it’s probably worth having more detailed conversations about Kiri:Moto on his http://forum.grid.space in the Kiri:Moto category there. :smiling_face:

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Nice video on using Gridfinity for metrology tools:

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seems like he spent far more time designing a first order accessible box for some tools than he saved by being less than first order accessible. LOL
Not sure about the work apron worn with flip-flops though. haha

I dunno, when I had to store my metrology gear and the tools for my Shapeoko 1, I just modeled it in 3D and arranged it in 3D space so that it would all fit in a cigar box:

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Right? He has quite the amazing collection of measurement devices. But I do get that he’s sharing his files so he’s put extra effort into making them all ‘just right’.