Error With Holes When Breaking Up Manually Nested Drawings

General
1

We often manually nest drawings in our CAD program (SketchUp) and then break them up in SheetCam. Sometimes this causes errors with holes in the parts so that they can’t be cut correctly.

Here is a screenshot of the file first uploaded with the holes as they should be

Screenshot 4
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2

With the plasma cut operation run, again the holes are as they should be

Screenshot 3
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3

Once the parts are broken up there are issues with the holes and they can’t be cut

Screenshot 2
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4

Screenshot 1
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Does anyone know what might cause this or what a solution is? I know we can manually nest everything in SheetCam, but we usually nest everything in SketchUp so we order the correct amount of material and it’s easier to just create a dxf from that.

5

Please prepare a Customer Support file for us using this method:

  • If Sheetcam is running, Close it and relaunch.
  • Open the problematic job.
  • Without changing anything in the job, simply Run the Post Processor to build a fresh gcode file. However, IF you did change something in the job already, then Save the Job before running the post processor.
  • Goto menu Help->‘Create a Support File’ and fill in the description of your problem as in what you have mentioned in prev memo and any other info you can remember or notice is wrong.
  • double check that your Imported DXF file is included in the list of artifacts, if its not, please send separately or include in .zip after next step.
  • Retain the default selection/check box of all of the artifacts to be zipped up from the list in the bottom frame. Click ‘Create file’.
  • Send that .zip file to sales@sheetcam.com or upload it here. We will review it along with your detailed description of the issue.

You’re also going to have to define better what “holes can’t be cut” means, if it’s not an obvious toolpath error in Sheetcam. If not an Operation error in Sheetcam drawing view, then is it a post processor error ? If not that, is it a CNC controller error ? or is it that the part is not cut to correct drawing specifications ?

6

What version of SheetCam are you using? I believe there was a problem like this but it was fixed a while back if I remember correctly.
Lou, if you look closely at that last pic you can see that some of the circles are broken so this is a SheetCam issue.

7

Thanks for the quick replies. I will put together the support file and send it over once we are done running the current job. I believe it is an operation error in the Sheetcam drawing view, if you look at the last photo I attached you can see some of the holes are only partially there while others are complete. The top part has all holes complete while the other two plates do not.

Les, it looks like we are running V6.1.16 which I believe is what came pre installed when we received our table from ArcLight (I don’t think we’ve ever updated).

8

@HueberInd , we received your support.zip and are looking at it.
As Les suspected, this appears to be a case of the problem/bug already being fixed since your v6.1.57 install. I’ve asked Les to take a look and advise; but in the meantime, If you’d like to install 7.1.35 to give that a try, should be no harm in doing that.

  • I imported the dxf you sent,
  • into v7.1.35 (Win),
  • used Part menu-‘Breakup manually nested drawing’,
  • the separated parts and holes are intact in the SC drawing view,
  • imported your toolset from the backup job (the only one sent),
  • created jet ops in each part, toolpaths look good and no warnings or errors,
  • imported your post processor (pp),
  • ran the pp,
  • gcode looks good and no warnings or errors.
9

Thanks, I will update today and hopefully that resolves our problem.

10

I finally got around to updating the software today and just realized that we are on a 32 bit system so it seems like V6.1.57 is the most recent version we can use which still has the same problem. Any suggestions?

11

I recall your support.zip indicated you were on linux.
Les sugggests the only possible solution at the moment (to run this on a linux OS) is to try running the Sheetcam 7.1.35 Windows version on Wine, a Windows vm for linux host.

Alternatively, if you are using linux for controller purposes (such as linuxcnc), consider that you can run Sheeetcam on another computer with Win OS.