Dear reader,
I’ve been starting using SheetCam some weeks ago, so I can declare myself being neither absolute newbie nor experienced.
I’m using the recent version of SheetCAM TNG. The topic is to mill the outline of a part being larger than the traverse path of my machine. Writing G-Code by hand, this is no problem; I just need to write a code for the two halves separately, mill one half, move the workpiece, change workpiece co ordinate system and then mill the second part.
But what would be a convenient way to achieve that with SheetCAM?
Nicolas,
What I have done in the past for just this situation is to
Draw my part as usual
Include some means to “index” the stock as it is moved such as a
pin or something like that.
Now, draw some “split lines” to split the job into sections.
Break the lines of the part along these split lines.
Move the various sections of the job to new layers.
Save the dxf file and import into Sheetcam as usual and do the
operations based on the pre-conceived layers for each section. Post
that section and move on to the next one and so on.
Hope this helps.
Country Bubba
At 10:47 AM 11/2/2010, you wrote:
Dear reader,
I’ve been starting using SheetCam some weeks ago, so I can declare
myself being neither absolute newbie nor experienced.
I’m using the recent version of SheetCAM TNG. The topic is to mill
the outline of a part being larger than the traverse path of my
machine. Writing G-Code by hand, this is no problem; I just need to
write a code for the two halves separately, mill one half, move the
workpiece, change workpiece co ordinate system and then mill the second part.
But what would be a convenient way to achieve that with SheetCAM?
Thank you for your kind answer. This means, I have to split lines in CAD already. It makes sense to put the halves of the drawing on different layers.
So, for the outer contour, I have to deal with open contours. Unfortunately, I did not find out yet how to deal with offsets on open contour, since the side of offset (left or right) seems to be totally random either if I choose “inside” or “outside”.
Is there a trick to deal with offset of open contours?
Greetings
Nicolas
[Edit: Sorry, false alarm. The version on my laptop is outdated, it’s V2.0.11, I should have read the Changelog before asking]
[Edit 2: SheetCAM has been updated to 3.0.5, problem remains]
The problem is that SheetCam has no way of knowing which side of the line is ‘inside’. Because of this, open contours are simply offset to the right. Imagine you are stood on the start point, looking down the line. The offset will be on the right. To reverse the side move the start point to the other end of the line.