(Not) Installing bcnc and some CAM

The bcnc wiki has installation instructions but I've never gone that route.  On my Linux OS it's run as a python script.  The recommended command for launching bcnc is:

python2  -m  bCNC

although it should also run in python3.  I'm not sure what the -m switch does but bcnc issues a warning in the terminal if it's not used.  The package python-tk is needed if it's not already installed.  There may be a few other things needed depending on what features of bcnc are desired.  I have a desktop launcher but configuring that is specific to my flavour of OS.

Inkscape has a spirograph generator but the g-code generating tool in Inkscape (gcodetools extension)  isn't great.  Spirograph g-code can be generated easily using bcnc. 

From the top task bar CAM was selected.  In the CAM environment there is another task bar beneath the tools where CAM is selected again and this menu can be expanded to Artistic -> Spirograph.  Nothing is quite where expected in bcnc and the old Tk interface may play a part.

This is the spirograph plugin.  I simply enter numbers and see what happens.  The title bar (Spirograph) is clicked to execute.

This is an example generated pattern.  Hit delete on the keyboard and a new pattern can be created.  When the pattern is acceptable save a g-code file or run it directly with grbl using bcnc as the sender.

The goal was to create a pattern and use bcnc to send it to the grbl control on my sand table.  The sand table was featured in a previous post:  https://steppingintocnc.blogspot.com/2020/02/son-of-sisyphus.html

 

 

Ha Ha that's the worst sand design ever.  Some practice might improve things ?  Usually the patterns are made using the online tool Sandify:

https://sandify.org/  

 

 

 

 

To see bcnc CAM doing something useful click the link below to a better blog:

http://www.weigu.lu/other_projects/cnc/bCNC/index.html