FlatCAM BETA (c) 2019 - by Marius Stanciu

Based on FlatCAM: 2D Computer-Aided PCB Manufacturing by (c) 2014-2016 Juan Pablo Caram

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 3.5 or greater and PyQt5. 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 a HDD location that your user has permissions for.

Linux Virtual Env

1. Clone this repository.
2. Install these packages from your distro's repository. On Ubuntu: sudo apt install libfreetype6 libfreetype6-dev libgeos-dev libpng-dev libspatialindex-dev qt5-style-plugins python3-dev python3-gdal python3-pip python3-pyqt5 python3-pyqt5.qtopengl python3-simplejson python3-tk python3-virtualenv
3. Create python virtual environment in repo's folder and activate it. virtualenv venv source venv/bin/activate
4. Install python requirements. pip3 install -r requirements.txt
5. Now, FlatCAM can be launched with launch.sh.

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 3.8 downloaded from here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/winpython/files/WinPython_3.8/ 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 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/developer/sharepoint-2010/ee537574(v%3Doffice.14))

• 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/ or 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

Linux

• make sure that Python 3.8 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 3.8) 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 python3.8-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

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

• unzip in this folder the sources downloaded from https://bitbucket.org/jpcgt/flatcam/downloads/ Using commands (e.g using the sources for FlatCAM beta 8.991): cd ~/FlatCAM wget https://bitbucket.org/jpcgt/flatcam/downloads/FlatCAM_beta_8.991_sources.zip unzip FlatCAM_beta_8.991_sources.zip cd FlatCAM_beta_8.991_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 python3 -m ensurepip python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

• run FlatCAM python3 FlatCAM.py