Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm definitely interested. I got into 3D printers and CNC machines at about the same time last year. I figured out the 3D printer right away and quickly went from printing out things on thingiverse to doing my own designs and outgrowing my printer and getting a fancier one. While I've done about 250 print jobs in just under a year on my 3D printers after 8 months with the CNC I've cut two things. I got an entry level…
There's a big difference between an additive process vs subtractive process. To me, additive is much easier as it starts at the bottom and build up. Nothing is ever in the way of the next step. Subtractive is much more difficult as you have to figure out how to get to places that needs tooling, how to hold the piece to do the work on it (especially as the piece changes shape in the process). Most projects I work on r…
My sticking point is more in the CAM side of things.
First I'll design something in Fusion 360. If I want to 3D print it the next steps are to export the stl (shape file) and open it in a slicer program. Then there are about ten parameters that may need some tweaking especially for a new printer and dozens more that you rarely change from the default before sending gcode to the printer. The slicer program can get you pretty close out of the box and the more I've done it the less time I spend slicing - my go-to settings print perfect 90% of the time. There are lots of resources (blog posts, youtube videos etc) explaining the different slicer settings and their effects on the print.
For CNC Milling after I've designed the part in F360 you switch over to CAM mode and it's like an entire different project that you have to design. With the slicer you say "lay it down on this side and print in PLA" the CNC CAM process makes 0 decisions for you. You can't just say "here's my stock, here's my end mill, put this side up and cut" and then tweak settings from there. Instead there are myriad permutations on feed rates, orders to cut things, multiple passes. Someone's feeds and speeds posted on the internet aren't going to work for your machine/material/design so there can't be something like a slicer program that can automatically route your CAM based on a few parameters and you can't reuse many settings between jobs.
I still like both printing and milling but milling is such a more difficult task with less mature software available (especially open source and hobby level software). That's why a fairly simple task warrants a pretty lengthy tutorial that's worthy of the HN front page.