Hi all - I wanted to share a new (free, open source) project called LaserPost that we’ve been working on for a few months, and just released the stable version today! It creates ready-to-burn LightBurn projects directly from Fusion 360 (or Inventor/HSMWorks, anything that uses the Autodesk CAM post-processor system).
The back story is we found it painful taking models (especially complex ones) and projecting sketches, exporting DXF file(s), and then setting up layers and adjusting the settings in LightBurn … to then go back and change the model, and do it all over again. After some research into the LBRN (legacy) file format, it became clear we could automate this end-to-end with a new Fusion 360 post-processor.
The post-processor extends and uses properties on various Fusion 360 objects such as Machine, Setup, 2D Profile cutting operation, and the post-processor generator page. This way all settings and configurations are saved with your model. Once your CAM is set up, you simply run the post-processor, open the LightBurn project file, and run the job. Even details like order of operation, grouping of objects, combining layers, closing shapes, and advanced shapes (including bezier curves) are supported. For example, text engraving works perfectly, including the tricky inner parts of letters (such as the inside of an “O” or “P”).
We also put together a series of short training videos and have documentation on all settings and options on our website. Full source is available, under the permissive MIT license, on GitHub.
You can download it, read the docs, and watch the installation and usage videos at nucarve.com - it’s completely free (for personal and business use, no subscriptions or “pro” versions, etc)
We’ve used it for some pretty complex models and it’s been working great for us. Hopefully, others here will find it useful as well. It would be fantastic if people would share this with friends and colleagues, or even make videos or share on social media … anything to help get the word out.
Now back to making some smoke…!