PCBWay macro

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yorik
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PCBWay macro

Post by yorik »

Just to notify that PCBWay.com has sponsored us to create a macro that allows to place a quote and order a CNC-manufacturing or 3D-printing of a part directly form within FreeCAD.

The macro is here: https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Macro_PCBWay

Enjoy!
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adrianinsaval
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Re: PCBWay macro

Post by adrianinsaval »

Nice! Is this the first corporate sponsor the FPA received? or was this not done through the FPA? Are they going to feature the macro in their website? Would be nice if they accepted FCStd files directly.
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Re: PCBWay macro

Post by freedman »

I like this posting, by using a macro there are no changes required to FreeCAD. Good idea!
Would be nice if they accepted FCStd files directly.
I always thought this was a big issue with CAD, if you start down this path then the CNC/Sheet metal folks need to be able to open files. In the US I would bet there is 10000+ CAD/sheet-metal shops that have to keep updated with Solidworks just to receive files from their clients, this is a huge waste of money. Add in all the other CAD companies and it's a huge pain, standard formats can be very useful.

I've done business with PCBWay a few times.
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Re: PCBWay macro

Post by Jee-Bee »

adrianinsaval wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 3:29 pm Would be nice if they accepted FCStd files directly.
In the Macro i didn't see anything that i relate to fileformats / exports... On their own website they support "IGES, PRT, STEP, STP, X_T, SLDPRT, STL, RAR or ZIP files."
If FCStd would be added to that list would be great!

To go off topic a bit...
freedman wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 4:10 pm I always thought this was a big issue with CAD, if you start down this path then the CNC/Sheet metal folks need to be able to open files. In the US I would bet there is 10000+ CAD/sheet-metal shops that have to keep updated with Solidworks just to receive files from their clients, this is a huge waste of money.
I think you forgot that a lot of manufacturers use tools like solidworks CAM (https://www.solidworks.com/product/solidworks-cam) Just like FC also have a tool.
I'm quite sure that most of them have only one CAD package and they have extra add-ons to open other formats too.
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johnwang
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Re: PCBWay macro

Post by johnwang »

freedman wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 4:10 pm I like this posting, by using a macro there are no changes required to FreeCAD. Good idea!
I don't like it. It kind of promoting for them for free. If the marco is not bonded to a commercial party, that's fine.
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onekk
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Re: PCBWay macro

Post by onekk »

johnwang wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 5:49 am
freedman wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 4:10 pm I like this posting, by using a macro there are no changes required to FreeCAD. Good idea!
I don't like it. It kind of promoting for them for free. If the macro is not bonded to a commercial party, that's fine.
If the macro is not automatically installed, I see no problem.

The company has payed FC to make a work that will ease "his customer" to model with FC and send the result to their site, where is the sin?

If there is not endorsement over a specific vendor, I will be happy that many companies will follow this path, for at least two reasons:

1) This indirectly will encourage customers of the company to FC. (enlarging the user base)
2) FC will receive money to improve his development (assuming that the funding will to to FCA), or someone will be payed to make some work with FC, that will have same effects as in 1)

My two cents.

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Carlo D.
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johnwang
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Re: PCBWay macro

Post by johnwang »

onekk wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 11:35 am The company has payed FC to make a work that will ease "his customer" to model with FC and send the result to their site, where is the sin?
If paid to ease modeling, yes, you are happy tell the world.
If paid to send result to their site, no, they have to tell the world by themself on their site or pay AD here. You don't need to do that for them for free.
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onekk
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Re: PCBWay macro

Post by onekk »

johnwang wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 12:31 pm ...

If paid to ease modeling, yes, you are happy tell the world.
If paid to send result to their site, no, they have to tell the world by themself on their site or pay AD here. You don't need to do that for them for free.
But as a user, if I want to make things, and I don't own a 3d printer or a CNC, I'm facing two alternatives:

1) find someone kindly enough to make things for me maybe here on the forum (but it has some problems, as you have to solve some problems like shipping or similar things that could pose problems, as I could be in Europe and maybe the "willing volunteer" is overseas or is some other country). This could also have some costs as things are not free and the volunteer has to spend time and use some material to do things, so "free" is not applicable even in this case.

2) find a service that will accept the design I have made and pay them to make my models and ship me.

in case 2) I could be forced to supply my models in some format for which I have not software or to convert things and this is could be a problem as "conversion" could not be exact.

I think that having a way to use some service that is accepting models made with FC (and that is paying to supply such facility to his customers) is not a sin.

Provided that in case there is many companies FC will not "endorse" "de facto" like if you include it in the "standard distribution" the use of a service over others.

I think that yorick post it is not an "endorsement", is a mere information, and IMHO is a very good information, that there is company willing to pay to ease the use of FC to make money.

The fact that the Macro code is "free" is another "must" as it is not a "closed source addon".

I think that speaking of "freedom" this way I'm not forced to use "proprietary software" to make things, and this is generally a "good thing".

Said from a user have used Linux for more than 20 years and that employ "second hand hardware" for most of his computing work. (Trying to produce less e-waste).

But as usually there may be different point of views.

Regards

Carlo D.
GitHub page: https://github.com/onekk/freecad-doc.
- In deep articles on FreeCAD.
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obelisk79
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Re: PCBWay macro

Post by obelisk79 »

I think it's a great thing, and thank you to PCBWay for being hopefully the first of many official Sponsors of FreeCAD!
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johnwang
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Re: PCBWay macro

Post by johnwang »

onekk wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 12:50 pm I think that having a way to use some service that is accepting models made with FC (and that is paying to supply such facility to his customers) is not a sin.
The point is who you get the information from. From the service provider, ok. From fc, not good.
Btw they have paid, they can keep the code closed as they like. Or charge to use it.
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