Have you been thinking about diving into the CNC world, but don’t know where to start? Well, we have a tool for you. Meet Fabber developed by SketchUp expert, Eric Schimelpfenig. Fabber is a type of CAM software that allows you to easily and quickly send your SketchUp models to your CNC or laser cutter. We sit down with Eric and talk to him about how he got started, why Fabber is groundbreaking, and some of the projects he’s used his extension on.
How did you come up with Fabber?
A bunch of years ago I built a small CNC out of MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard). 10 million internet points if you can find the video on YouTube. Why, you ask? I’m still not sure, but from then on I was hooked on the idea that I could take something I designed digitally and turn it into a real object with robots.
Over the years this non-traditional method of fabrication has led to building some very cool projects (read on to learn more about those).
Because of my robot knowledge and boundary-pushing projects, I’ve been asked many times, “how do you do that?”. I’ve broken it down into three steps:
Design my idea in SketchUp
Prep my design for CNC
Run my design on CNC
All three of these steps require software, and it’s the software for prepping your design that’s expensive and difficult to use. It’s also the most important step besides creating your design. I decided to solve that problem by developing Fabber. It’s a cloud-based, CAM software that makes running a CNC incredibly easy.
