FernV, calling FernV

Hasn't changed.

This is very exciting. I was hoping to not be stuck on my linuxcnc versions. Please keep this thread going. I'm a nativecam user and have been hoping for new features on it.

Commenting mostly in frustration. I'd like to update all my machines to linuxcnc 2.9.1 but haven't seen an alternative to Nativecam that looks as useful and slick - I still use it extensively on lathe, router and mill as it works so well.

My current idea for a solution is to have nativecam installed on a sim.axis machine in linuxcnc 2.8.4 running on debian 10 on a laptop that I can carry between machine tools, all connected to the workshop network. That should allow me to design part programs in ncam, save them to a shared folder as I do with SheetCAM output, and access the results from the relevant machine to run the program.

Right now I'm away from the shop for seasonal reasons, and trying this out by dual-booting between the two lcnc versions on the same laptop.  I have lcnc 2.8.4 up and running with ncam installed and able to generate the part program and run it in the sim.axis machine as expected. The program is then exported using ncam's 'export as RS274NGC' option, but when I boot into debian 12, open lcnc 2.9.1 and go to open the part program file, I get this error:
Near line 93 of
/home/freemoore/linuxcnc/configs/sim.axis/ncamvm/export as etc test.ngc: EOF in file:/home/fremoore/linuxcnc/configs/sim.axis/ncamvm/export as etc test.ngc seeking o-word: o<select> from line:92

So. Does anyone know if it's possible to run nativecam-generated gcode files on a system that can't install nativecam? As far as I can tell it works using o-words and although it doesn't look anything like the gcode files I'm used to working with, they seem to be in a valid format. From what I can gather I probably need to add something to my subroutine path and maybe do something with the M123 python file that nativecam generates, but so far haven't been able to get past that error.

If anyone's done this I'd be grateful for a guide. Would be really great to be able to update to debian12 without losing nativecam.

Thanks all,
andy

 

I would think that you should be able to run gcode created by nativecam as long as you have the necessary gcode subroutines in your subroutine paths. As for what those are you will need to explore the paths of your working ncam installation.


There is work underway to port it to Qt:
forum.linuxcnc.org/qtvcp/50926-developme...rsion-of-ncam#288365

Some work is being done by me for an update:
forum.linuxcnc.org/qtvcp/50926-developme...a-qt-version-of-ncam

You should be able to run the programs without ncam, you need the ncam oword libraries available and the INI SUBROUTINE_PATH must be set.

Thanks, Aciera and cmorley, this is fantastic news. Although my current toolchain of Rhino3d/Grasshopper/sheetcam is great and likely more powerful than I'll ever much use, NativeCAM is still useful daily for so much stuff, it's just so immediate.

I've tried a bunch of times to hack together some way of getting the use of it on an otherwise updated machine, without success. If I can help out with testing at all please let me know.