CAMel, Grasshopper output for 5-axis CAM

I am proud to announce the first release of Grasshopper components to output GCode for 5-axis machines. At the moment it is simply a collection of clusters and scripted components, but it will become a proper plugin.

This is joint work with Santiago Perez. There is a lot more information to be found here:

http://maxwelldemon.com/2011/09/29/camel/

and here is a machine running the code generated by CAMel:

Attachments:

CAMel_0.12.gh, 63 KB
Treetop.3dm, 57 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ivan Kiryakov on September 30, 2011 at 8:06am

CAM FTW!

Permalink Reply by David Stasiuk on September 30, 2011 at 8:18am

Fantastic!

Permalink Reply by Victor Leung on February 28, 2013 at 3:42am

Hi Edmund,

I'm very excited to see your work, I had an idea of writing a plugin for 3 axis CNC mill. Just don't have the time to start. Please keep us posted and I'm interested to see how you are solving the 5 axis translations.

I have worked with 3 axis CNC and G-Codes extensively, but not with a 5 axis though. Would be nice if you post a bit more info about it.

Permalink Reply by Edmund Harriss on February 28, 2013 at 9:47pm

Hi Victor

The project has developed quite a lot. It can do 3-axis as well as five if that is of interest to you. Drop me a line and I can send the most recent version.

Permalink Reply by Victor Leung on March 2, 2013 at 10:01pm

Hi Edmund,

I am interested to know more about your development, I have started a thread discussing the arrangement of developing a CAM plugin for a 3 axis CNC. "My goal is to have a plugin that is easy enough for most GH users to use. It aims at creating toolpaths in a parametric way, allowing reuse of definition settings, quick design change, and able to process large batch of information without error."

I am currently at the stage of gather ideas and finding the right direction. Since you have already started CAMel, which looks really nice, I wonder if there is a chance of collobration. I think it is important I understand more about your system to decide what is the best way forward, either which:

If your team likes our idea, we could merge the project.
If our goals and audience does not match, we may still be able to have development to minimize repeated work.
If our goals are very different perhaps there are still chance to have inter-operability.

Permalink Reply by Edmund Harriss on March 3, 2013 at 9:39am

Collaboration sounds like a good possibility to me. Will drop you a PM.

Permalink Reply by Tuan N. Tran on February 28, 2013 at 10:32pm

cool. thanks for sharing CAMel. what's the brand/model of the machine in the video?

Permalink Reply by Edmund Harriss on March 1, 2013 at 7:21am

The machine is a custom build made by Mike Calvino: http://www.calvinodesign.com/90037/90037-02.01/BuildLog11/

Permalink Reply by Philip Valentine on August 15, 2013 at 6:51am

Hi there,

I am currently using your CAMel script to generate the 5 axis code, but it is set up to generate A and C axis movements at the moment.

Could you create a small script to generate A and B axis movements instead of the current A and C please? or advise me on how to adjust the script as I have attempted to do so but I am not getting the required data from it.

Permalink Reply by Philip Valentine on August 16, 2013 at 8:01am

Don't worry I have figured it out. Great work for the definition though!

Permalink Reply by Edmund Harriss on August 16, 2013 at 8:40am

I have an updated version if you are interested. It is BC.

Permalink Reply by Philip Valentine on August 16, 2013 at 8:44am

It would be useful to check against mine in-case there are any mistakes in my scripting.