CAM Toolchains
These pages should be merged such that both pages do not attempt to cover the duplicate topics.
A RepRap CAM toolchain consists of all the software elements needed to create printed 3d models from CAD models to firmware.
Here we lists the various toolchain components available and provides a comparison of their features, compatible toolchain components and how to get them.
It should be noted that a comparison of CAD modeling programs is outside of the scope of this article however it should be noted that in general CAM toolchains are CAD program agnostic because they can accept standard STL models as input which almost all CAD programs can export directly or through plugins.
Firmware
Firmware | Author(s) | Compatible electronics | Compatible software drivers | dc motor extruder? | stepper extruder? | extruder speed control? | movement speed control? | thermocouples? | heated build platforms? | Documentation | Download |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
RepRap FiveD GCode Interpreter | RepRap.org | Gen 3 (more?) | RepRap Software | ? | true | true | true | ? | ? | ||
MakerBot Firmware Fork | MakerBot.com | Gen 3 (more?) | ReplicatorG | true | ? | ? | ? | true | true |
RepRap Drivers
Driver | Author(s) | Compatible firmware(s) | Manual movement? | Manual extruder control? | Manual stepper disable? | Manual heated build platform control? | Live GCode terminal? | SD card upload? | GCode input? | Step-NC input? | Integrated GCode compiler? | Documentation | Download |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
RepRap Host Software | RepRap.org |
|
true | true | false | false | false | ? | true | false | true | ||
RepSnapper | Kulitorum |
|
? | ? | ? | ? | true | ? | true | false | true | ||
ReplicatorG | Replicat.org |
|
true | true | true | true | false | ? | true | false | false |
Note: some drivers such as the RepRap Host Software are listed here and under GCode compilers as they serve both functions however for comparison purposes their features have been split into the relevant tables.
GCode, Etc. Compilers
Compiler | Author(s) | Compatible firmware features | STL input? | Multiple STL input? | Step-NC input? | RFO input? | GCode output? | Step-NC output? | RFO output? | Compilation Speed | Documentation | Download |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
RepRap Host Software | RepRap.org | ? | true | ? | false | false | true | false | ? | slow | ||
RepSnapper | Kulitorum | ? | true | true | false | true | true | false | true | fast | ||
SkeinForge | Bits from Bytes Community? | ? | true | false | false | ? | true | false | false | average |