Hi,
I've built a thing. Or, more accurately, I asked Claude to build a thing.
I wanted to see how good AI coding agents have actually become. I didn't expect to make this public, but I think what came out of it might be useful to some of you as well.
It's a conversational lathe CAM program that I've called WOP (Workshop Optimized Programming).
It runs directly on Linux, not as a plugin for any LinuxCNC GUI, but as a standalone application.
I don't think it can replace full-featured CAM software for complex parts. But at least for me, most of the parts I make on the lathe aren't particularly complicated. So I see it as something in between full CAM software and Andy Pugh's lathe macros.
It currently supports facing, simple turning, drilling with canned cycles, threading, grooving, and turning along a custom path. It also has some machine-control features, such as optional stops that can be inserted between operations.
I'm the only person who has really used and tested it so far, so there may be things that seem obvious to me but aren't particularly intuitive to anyone else. Hopefully, though, it's fairly easy to use. That's really the main goal: to have a quick and straightforward way to program an entire part in a single file and export the resulting G-code.
If you want to try it out, it's open source on GitHub:
github
If you want to see how it works, I've also made a YouTube video:
I'd be interested to hear what you think, especially if you get a chance to try it out.
