Developer for a Freecad module/workbench sought, paid position

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Adouglas
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2016 9:37 pm

Developer for a Freecad module/workbench sought, paid position

Post by Adouglas »

Depending on the technical landscape, that is, how technically viable it is and how much needs to be done and when, this is a sizeable project, probably a couple hundred person hours to get to a beta version, and then there is a lot of potential for further improvements to allow the system to be even more powerful over the years ahead. I was thinking part time because I don't want to end up being the progress bottleneck, however there is enough work to do that it could be full time.

I am part of the development of an interesting new digital fabrication tool. It makes molds by depositing material and then employing 3d REST machining, in layers, to form molds. There are many aspects that need development. The software related aspects are primarily those which require the analysis and slicing of solids and surfaces.

One of the two largest challenges is to produce a system that can, in effect, take a model (a slice of the mold) which we already know can be machined fully by a certain set of end mills, and create sensible toolpaths to remove material wherever it needs to be removed, to within a certain cusp height. I have some ideas on how to simplify this. It is ultimately a system for producing 3d rest milling toolpaths fully automatically, but only of a certain variety, which simplifies things.

Whether or not I can do this in FreeCAD will probably depend on whether or not I can find someone through this forum to collaborate with. If not, I will have to do it with fusion 360, which I really don't want to do because it is closed source and as a result all my work could be lost, I could encounter bugs that cannot be resolved etc., but I need something that will at least allow me to make some demo parts. Right now, I can make demo parts with fusion 360, but it is very laborious, because, ultimately, several of the assumptions about what the user wants are slightly different from what I want.

This offering will remain open for several months, probably, because I will be using fusion to do my demo parts and prove other aspects of the system, with the FreeCAD plugin being needed to reduce labor input and increase the variety and quality of parts that can be made, as well as increasing build speed. So if you see this any time in the next few months or even year, please contact me. My email is Anthony.a.douglas@gmail.com.
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