Welcome to the Onshape forum! Ask questions and join in the discussions about everything Onshape.
First time visiting? Here are some places to start:- Looking for a certain topic? Check out the categories filter or use Search (upper right).
- Need support? Ask a question to our Community Support category.
- Please submit support tickets for bugs but you can request improvements in the Product Feedback category.
- Be respectful, on topic and if you see a problem, Flag it.
If you would like to contact our Community Manager personally, feel free to send a private message or an email.
CAM Studio
jordan_estock713
Member Posts: 2 ✭
Help! I am a high school teacher using Onshape with my engineering classes. We have been using Onshape with students for about 7 years now and love it. We use it to talk to all of our rapid prototyping equipment such as laser cutters and 3d printers.
Where Onshape falls short is the lack of CAM software. Currently our workflow is clunky. It starts in Onshape, we export a PDF to a program called Vcarve (windows) and then we can create toolpaths and send it to cut on our ShopBot CNC router. With all of our students now using Chromebooks I hate having to get another device out that has Vcarve, learn that device/software, to then finally get to the router. I would love to be able to create the CAD model in Onshape and then use Onshape to create the toolpaths and send cut files to my CNC router.
I found out that Onshape has "CAM studio" built in but it is only for professional account users or commercial enterprise account users. Id love to try this CAM studio out before committing the $2,500 for the professional account.
Does anyone have any experience they can share with me regarding CAM Studio in Onshape? OR even better, Is anyone willing to let me try it out with them? I tried gaining access to CAM studio through the Onshape Discovery program where you get 6 months professional access for free but that version does not have CAM studio built in.
Thank you for your consideration
Comments
I'm not sure the CAM component has been added yet but is being worked on by the Onshape peeps. Would https://grid.space/kiri/ be something you could use?
CAM is still in beta. Its not available to anyone in any account type (outside of the beta testers).
I see that CAM Studio (Beta) has recently been released to Professional and Enterprise accounts.
Will schools or FIRST Robotics teams qualify for CAM Studio?
Currently, we export a STP file from Onshape and then import to an Autodesk product (Inventor or Fusion - students choice) to create the Gcode for our router. If the Onshape model changes, the process starts over.
I imagine using CAM Studio will offer a better integration between design and manufacturing.
I look forward to using CAM Studio some day.
Thank you for your time and attention. I look forward to the replies.
Regards,
Jerry
OS staff mentioned it may be coming later to EDU users. I'm assuming they mean the EDU enterprise accounts tied to a school, not the individual EDU accounts that any person on the planet can sign up for.
You can try Kiri:MOTO in the OnShape App store. I've added it to my account, but haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet.
https://cad.onshape.com/appstore/apps/CAM/568c6d69e4b0d556c8625e5b
Can you consider adding Cam Studio to the free version???
Even it is a cut down version.
thanks Eddie Flemming
Or what about adding an option to access the pro features like write access to private documents, CAM and rendering for 5€ per day?
I would rent that for some days in the year, would even put a few hundred € on the table to work for some weeks on a project that I consider protection worthy, would be ok to pay for some days if I need to create new gcode files or renderings etc. Just not 2975€ a year for (too) rare usage.
Yes the two I would love would be CAM and the Render studio (great for slide making!) I have yet to use any CAD package as good for teaching as OnShape as it is powerful but not the kitchen sink overwhelming like say Fusion360 ("Help, I am stuck in the circuit design module!") but having to export your parts to Fusion to machine them is clunky and you lose some of the magic of integrated CAM (like it knows what a hole is and the settings in the hole-tool to intelligently create the strategy for machining it especially on the smaller mills we might use, where unlike Titan you can't do rigid tapping and need to thread mill). Even if limited to some usage/month (although unlike renders CAM is often an iterative process which may be why Fusion uses a cloud-credit system giving more flexibility in usage budgeting)
Render Studio (even if limited to X renders/month) would be amazing for class slide decks when we are talking about the finished part (sure I can actually make the part, but kind of un-environmental and if I am traveling for some reason the airlines won't bring my milling machine on the plane?). Currently I export the same STEP to Fusion360 to render instead as while the CAD is more fiddly, the render studio is really nice as the professor.
Same here. I teach engineering and First Robotics. We switched to Onshape because of its eas in versioning and bing cloud based. It was really underpowered compared to Solidworks and other software based CAD, but it has improved so much we now use it for 95% of everything. One area where its not a consideration was CAM. No plugin or add on was worth the time we spent trying to make it work. If there is now a native option for CAM we would be interested for First robotics and Education. $2500 is not an option for us since we use HSMworks for free from Autodesk which is a CAM plug in for Solidworks, and Fusion 360 is free as well. These packages are fantastic, with the only downside of not being cloud based. It only a matter of time until there is an all in one solution for education. We run a Tormach 1100 CNC Mill with the CAM.
Make that 3 of us now asking to have CAM Studio for EDU.
As Mike stated $2500 wont fly as here at ASU we have 8k seats of SW but don't like SWCAM for our shop, we also use HSMWorks and CON-Fusion360 (my name for it). Also AutoDesk just sent out to HSMWorks customers that they are retiring it on March 25th, 2028 and it will no longer be included with Fusion entitlement after March 25th, 2025, it will be grandfather to customers that already have it prior.
That being said some are going to have to scramble to learn something new to replace HSMWorks and it is an opportune time for OnShape to get into the hands that will shape the future.
I've been a machinist\model maker for 40 years using Surfcam, SW\HSMworks prototyping one offs for ID and students and OnShape being browser based is great since everything in the cloud can CAM on the fly.
Hope to see it soon in an EDU release.
lenny
"Also AutoDesk just sent out to HSMWorks customers that they are retiring it on March 25th, 2028"
That's what I hate with subscriptions (Onshape not counting as a cloud native service where even access to old versions would mean ongoing costs for PTC - there subscription is unfortunately the only realistic option).
HSMWorks would probably perfectly well continue to work for the next 20 years if you keep a compatible machine. And in many cases it probably can do everything needed for the job. But still, it will cease to function, just because of that business model and a company wanting to enforce to buy their new stuff instead. This is just artificial, planned obsolescence without any technical need, making something non-functional that would otherwise perfectly continue to work. Which should imho be forbidden.
Also excited to see Cam Studio, but agree the number one issue I run into with students, FRC teams or edu colleagues is that OS lacks features that we utilize from other software. Don't get me wrong, I love using and teaching OS, but many see it as hobby app only because as students they don't experience the full potential of OS so they look to things like Fusion to be what they should learn/focus in preparation for industry. Would love to bring OS as an option into a college design studio but it needs to have CAM and rendering to be seen as a viable consideration for the students.
Another First Robotics mentor joining the chorus. Our students teach themselves to use Onshape in Project Lead the Way and woodshop, exporting to laser cutters and 3D Printers for coursework and hobby projects. But toolpaths for our CNC mill and router require a cumbersome export to Fusion or VCarve Pro. Give the thousands of FRC and FTC team members- the next generation of engineers- access to integrated CAM in high school and college and they will be Onshape customers for life.
Not just for .edu accounts, we hobby machinists could really use a decent CAM facility that's fully integrated with OnShape and doesn't require the bad hybrid workflow with Fusion hobbyist edition that we have to put up with now. A $2.5K subscription is a complete non-starter for home machinists. I hope OS can figure out some reasonable plan to support the hobbyist use case. XYZA, basic tool changer, and Acorn/Mach4/LinuxCNC posts would make a lot of people happy. And please not the crippling of rapids that Fusion saddles us with…we already have relatively slow moving machines.