Is there a way to change the scaling factor for looping sharp corners in toolpaths? We do this sometimes with funky corners or thick materials. The problem I am having is that I can’t make the loops large enough to be effective.
Upfront - we’re weirdos running lasers and cutter comp (G42/G43). I realize running a kerf of 0.0" or 0.001" with cutter comp on is part of the issue, but even if I create a custom tool with an honest kerf size (say 0.03") I’m still getting 0.15" loops max. In 1" steel I need easily 2x-4x that to reliably benefit from looping corners.
Is there something I can add to the post or a settings file to change the scaling factor? Say from 50x to 500x or 1000x? If it would also adjust corner rounding that would be even better.
No sure if this could be solved with code snippets or path rules (still haven’t gotten my head around those).
Thanks!
@LesNewell looked this over and added a new Options-Application Options-Advanced setting named ‘Maximum loop size’ which is a percentage of the kerf to determine max loop dimension.
Please give it a try. Enhancement posted as V7.1.40 development version.
Help-Check for Updates if necessary to install it. Dev version only.
Please report back your results.
Just saw this. I had actually updated to V7.1.40 already, but missed the memo. We’ll run it for production for a while and keep y’all posted. Thanks!
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Update:
Ran the first part using this feature, worked perfect! 1" steel, and the sharp corners came out beautiful.
If we can get adjustment for size when arc rounding the corners too, that would be the bees’ knees. A manual setting in toolpath would be great, but some kind of comparable scaling adjustment or background setting in the tool or machine would work well too.
I don’t know how involved any of that would be to integrate, of if it can already be work-around-ed in the post or with code snippets (I still need to figure those out).
I’ll add more as we run more. Thanks again!
I don’t understand the context of this, please explain or provide a picture.
BlockquoteI don’t understand the context of this, please explain or provide a picture.
That’s because I brain-farted. TLDR: I mixed up old-CAM’s features and SheetCam’s features.
Basically, old-CAM would let us cut sharp corners, turn on corner loops (much like SheetCAM), or it will also auto-round (radius, fillet, etc) corners. The auto radius is based on tool radius - after a while I realized I could lie to it about tool diameter (since we’re running G42), and not have to manually round corners in CAD. I looked at SheetCam’s “loop sharp corners” and “arc” and my SMRT brain went “hot dog, maybe they can get them arc corners runnin too, woo hoo”. 
This is what I get for trying to do 2 things at 1 time 
I mean, auto rounding corners with user-defined radius is still a cool feature for guys with lasers (especially the CC running G42 weirdos), but I bet it’s not the low hanging fruit my CAD-addled brain was thinking either, haha.
That’s an interesting feature suggestion. This is more in the category of the Overcut internal corners’ feature in sheetcam, where the part contour is purposely interfered by the cutting tool. Those may be the only cases of such programmed contour interference in sheetcam that I can think of.
At some point though one has to ‘draw the line’ on such part altering features, that is let CAD draw the line and limit CAM to work within the lines 
I’ll let defer this to @Les_Newell for further comment.
