Just spent 3 hours setting up a 15-minute cut. Is this just the reality of desktop CNC?
LA prop maker here. I was working on a rush job last night—just needed to cut out a simple aluminum armature plate for a stop-motion puppet. The actual machining time? 15 minutes. The setup time? Almost 3 hours.
Between fighting with Fusion 360’s CAM module throwing random toolpath errors, trying to get my post-processor to talk to the machine without a USB error, and manually zeroing my workpiece because my probe decided to act up... I nearly lost my mind.
I’m used to my resin and FDM 3D printers where I just hit "slice and print." I know milling is physically more complex, but why is the software side still so archaic? Am I just using the wrong machine/software combo, or is everyone else spending 90% of their time babysitting the setup just to get 10% cutting time?
Honestly considering going back to hand-cutting and a drill press for these rush jobs.