80 lines
3 KiB
Markdown
80 lines
3 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: My CNC machining workflow
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date: 2015-05-28 19:01:33
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tags: []
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series: [cnc]
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---
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Hello ! Today we'll talk about driving CNC machines, toolpaths and
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Debian, so stay tuned ! I have a separate old PC for driving the CNC
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machine via parallel port. This is, as they say, the Only Proper Way and
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It Was Always Like That. I'm thinking about changing this to
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USB+[grbl](https://github.com/grbl/grbl) in the future then ;) Up
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till now, my workflow went as follows;
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- Do the research and drawing/parts modeling in FreeCad, on my main workstation
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- Export to e.g. DXF
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- Import in HeeksCad
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- Design machining operations, export gcode
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- Copy gcode to a network drive
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- Switch the monitor and keyboard to the one of the old PC
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- Open gcode in LinuxCNC and go
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What happens if it's not perfect at first try though ?! Most commonly the issue is with the
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toolpath, like I want to change feeds or speeds or depth of cut, rarely
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it is with the part itself, fortunately. It may have something to do
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with the fact that I'm mostly working with other people's parts for now
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;) Anyway, to do any correction I need to switch back to the main
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workstation, correct in Heeks, re-export to the network drive and switch
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back, reimport. Not very annoying but not very convenient either. But
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wait. What if...I install Heeks on the old PC ?! It's running
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[LinuxCNC](http://linuxcnc.org/) realtime distro, which is based on
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Debian wheezy. Heeks packages are available prepackaged for Ubuntu only.
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With the help of the
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[documentation](https://code.google.com/p/heekscad/wiki/BuildDebianPackages)
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and the comments there and in other corners of the internet I was able
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to get this little script done:
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```bash
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#!/bin/bash
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set -e
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set -v
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sudo apt-get update
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sudo apt-get -y install liboce-visualization-dev libwxgtk2.8-dev libgtkglext1-dev python-dev build-essential bzr git libboost-dev libboost-python-dev subversion debhelper cmake liboce-ocaf2 liboce-ocaf-dev oce-draw
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mkdir heeks_build
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cd heeks_build
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svn checkout http://libarea.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ libarea
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cd libarea
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dpkg-buildpackage -b -us -uc
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cd ..
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sudo dpkg -i libarea*.deb python-area*.deb
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svn checkout http://heekscad.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ heekscad
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cd heekscad
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dpkg-buildpackage -b -us -uc
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cd ..
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sudo dpkg -i *heeks*.deb
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svn checkout http://heekscnc.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ heekscnc
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cd heekscnc
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dpkg-buildpackage -b -us -uc
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cd ..
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git clone https://github.com/aewallin/opencamlib.git
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cd opencamlib
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bzr branch lp:~neomilium/opencamlib/packaging debian
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dpkg-buildpackage -b -us -uc
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cd ..
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sudo dpkg -i python-ocl*.deb
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sudo dpkg -i heekscnc*.deb
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```
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Run this on your LinuxCNC machine and that's it. It will download and
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build all the dependencies and Heeks CAD and CAM packages. This way, my
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current workflow goes more like this:
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- Do the research and drawing/parts modeling in FreeCad, on my main workstation
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- Export to e.g. DXF to a network drive
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- Switch the monitor and keyboard to the one of the old PC
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- Import in HeeksCad
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- Design machining operations, export gcode
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- Open gcode in LinuxCNC and go
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- Repeat last 2 steps if necessary - no machine switching
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