Software.

preachinpilot · Jan 24, 2019

Okay BobCad is out. Cant get artcam anymore and considering v-carve.
I make leather stamping tools much like tandy tools sells but professional quaity. What software would you suggest for making these tools. Want to know what they look like? Look at tandy leather tools. That said the blanks are pre made so all imdoing is hopefully taking a design, making it 3d and an stl file, tehn setting up a haas tm1 to cut the design or shall i say engrave the design into the face of teh tool.
Thanks

gregormarwick · Jan 25, 2019

First off, ANY half decent cam will do what you need. With that in mind, what's wrong with bobcad for you?

Secondly, NO cam software is going to make nice parts from an STL file without a lot of work. You need to remove that from your workflow before you go any further.

DDoug · Jan 25, 2019

Hardware....

Qwan · Jan 29, 2019

gregormarwick said:
First off, ANY half decent cam will do what you need. With that in mind, what's wrong with bobcad for you?

Secondly, NO cam software is going to make nice parts from an STL file without a lot of work. You need to remove that from your workflow before you go any further.

I agree with the first statement but could not disagree more on the second statement. Any good cam software will machine STL files with ease and get great results albeit there are typically more 3D contours than with solids models. Solids tend to be more prismatic and STL's tend to be more free form. I machine STL files all the time and the fact is there are great solids and and STL's and bad solids and STL's; it all comes down to the quality of the model and if the cam software can machine it, not so much to do with the type of model.

That being said I would stick to programming solid models if you can and there isn't much need to create STL files unless you are 3D printing. In some respects I find programming STL's easier than solid models but you'll typically have way more tool path control programming solid models. Look at it like this, a STL model behaves like having a NURBS surface model that has only one face for the entire model (or skin if it is not an enclosed body). With STL there are no non-freeform faces such as planar, cylindrical or conical.

gregormarwick · Jan 29, 2019

Qwan said:
I agree with the first statement but could not disagree more on the second statement. Any good cam software will machine STL files with ease and get great results albeit there are typically more 3D contours than with solids models. Solids tend to be more prismatic and STL's tend to be more free form. I machine STL files all the time and the fact is there are great solids and and STL's and bad solids and STL's; it all comes down to the quality of the model and if the cam software can machine it, not so much to do with the type of model.

That being said I would stick to programming solid models if you can and there isn't much need to create STL files unless you are 3D printing. In some respects I find programming STL's easier than solid models but you'll typically have way more tool path control programming solid models. Look at it like this, a STL model behaves like having a NURBS surface model that has only one face for the entire model (or skin if it is not an enclosed body). With STL there are no non-freeform faces such as planar, cylindrical or conical.

You may have an exception, but the rule is that triangle meshes do not play well with modern cam systems. A step (parametric primitives with nurbs surface patches) file can do everything that an STL can do, with far less data, and will be far more likely to be usable in any given cam software (that isn't 20 years old).

I brought it up because OP dismissed bobcad without stating a reason, and then went on to talk about stl files. The obvious assumption being that he was unable to import his stl files and make good toolpaths from them, the extension of that being that he is likely to face the same problem with practically every other cam software as well.

Qwan · Jan 30, 2019

gregormarwick said:
You may have an exception, but the rule is that triangle meshes do not play well with modern cam systems. A step (parametric primitives with nurbs surface patches) file can do everything that an STL can do, with far less data, and will be far more likely to be usable in any given cam software (that isn't 20 years old). I brought it up because OP dismissed bobcad without stating a reason, and then went on to talk about stl files. The obvious assumption being that he was unable to import his stl files and make good toolpaths from them, the extension of that being that he is likely to face the same problem with practically every other cam software as well.

Well I should hope that STEP can do everything STL can do since STL pre-dates STEP by decades lol. Perhaps I'm a bit off base assuming most modern cam systems can handle STL files. NX machines them with ease and from what I have seen, our mastercam programmers can toolpath large STL files albeit much slower to process. Whenever we get STL work, it always goes to our NX programmers.

Back to topic...
The moral of the story is still there shouldn't be any good reason for preachinpilot to create STL files. For that matter if his leather punch models are relatively small I doubt he will have need for parametric features either.

@preachinpilot
Why is Bobcad out? Have you looked at Fusion?

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