FlatCAM Evo (c) 2019 - by Marius Stanciu
FlatCAM is a program for preparing CNC jobs for making PCBs on a CNC router. Among other things, it can take a Gerber file generated by your favorite PCB CAD program, and create G-Code for Isolation routing.
=====================================================================
-------------------------- Installation instructions ----------------
Works with Python version 3.6 or greater and PyQt6. More on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVvP2SYRpx-AQgNlfoxw93tXUXon7G94_
You can contact me on my email address found in the app in: Menu -> Help -> About FlatCAM -> Programmers -> Marius Stanciu
- Make sure that your OS is up-to-date
- Download sources from: https://bitbucket.org/jpcgt/flatcam/downloads/
- Unzip them on an HDD location that your user has permissions for.
1.Windows
- download the provided installer (for your OS flavor 64bit or 32bit) from: https://bitbucket.org/jpcgt/flatcam/downloads/
- execute the installer and install the program. It is recommended to install as a Local User.
or from sources:
-
download the sources from the same location
-
unzip them on a safe location on your HDD that your user has permissions for
-
install WinPython e.g. WinPython 3.9 downloaded from here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/winpython/files/WinPython_3.9/ Use one of the versions (64bit or 32it) that are compatible with your OS. To save space use one of the versions that have the smaller size (they offer 2 versions: one with size of few hundred MB and one smaller with size of few tens of MB)
-
add Python folder and Python\Scripts folder to your Windows Path
-
verify that the pip package can be run by opening Command Prompt(Admin) and running the command:
pip -V
- look in the requirements.txt file (found in the sources folder) and install all the dependencies using the pip package. The required wheels can be downloaded either from: https://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/ (Recommended) or if the required modules cannot be found in the previous source use: https://pypi.org/
You can download all the required wheels files into a folder (e.g D:\my_folder) and install them from Command Prompt like this:
cd D:\my_folder
and for each wheel file (*.whl) run:
D:\my_folder\> pip install --upgrade package_from_requirements.whl
Run FlatCAM beta from the installation folder (e.g D:\FlatCAM_beta) in the Command Prompt with the following command: cd D:\FlatCAM_beta python FlatCAM.py
2.Linux
-
create a folder to hold the sources somewhere on your HDD: mkdir FlatCAM-beta
-
unzip in this folder the sources downloaded from https://bitbucket.org/jpcgt/flatcam/downloads/ Using commands (e.g using the sources for FlatCAM beta 8.995): cd ~/FlatCAM-beta wget https://bitbucket.org/jpcgt/flatcam/downloads/FlatCAM_beta_8.995_sources.zip unzip FlatCAM_beta_8.995_sources.zip cd FlatCAM_beta_8.995_sources
-
make sure that Python 3.9 is installed on your OS and that the command: python3 -V confirm it
-
verify that the pip package is installed for your Python installation (e.g 3.9) by running the command:
pip3 -V
If it is not installed, install it. In Ubuntu-like OS's it is done like this:
sudo apt-get install python3-pip
or:
sudo apt-get install python3.9-pip
- verify that the file setup_ubuntu.sh has Linux line-endings (LF) and that it is executable (chmod +x setup_ubuntu.sh)
- run the file setup_ubuntu.sh and install all the dependencies with the command:
./setup_ubuntu.sh
-
if the previous command is successful and has no errors, run FlatCAM with the command: python3 FlatCAM.py
-
Alternatively you can install it on Ubuntu with:
# Optional if depencencies are missing
make install_dependencies
# Install for the current user only (using the folder in its place)
make install
# System-wide instalation
sudo make install
3.MacOS
Instructions from here: https://gist.github.com/natevw/3e6fc929aff358b38c0a#gistcomment-3111878
-
create a folder to hold the sources somewhere on your HDD: mkdir FlatCAM-beta
-
unzip in this folder the sources downloaded from https://bitbucket.org/jpcgt/flatcam/downloads/ Using commands (e.g using the sources for FlatCAM beta 8.995): cd ~/FlatCAM-beta wget https://bitbucket.org/jpcgt/flatcam/downloads/FlatCAM_beta_8.995_sources.zip unzip FlatCAM_beta_8.995_sources.zip cd FlatCAM_beta_8.995_sources
-
check if Homebrew is installed: xcode-select --install ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
-
install dependencies: brew install pyqt brew install gdal python3 -m ensurepip python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt
-
run FlatCAM python3 FlatCAM.py