Some Features Were Too Small To Machine

[Vongehr]

The simple question is: Why am I getting the “Some Features Were Too Small To Machine” warning?

The backstory is: I’m two months new to this. I started with a Hobart 250ci I bought to get into cutting artwork as a hobby a while ago and really never used because I had a kid. Then I had another and it went away a little bit longer. Now those boys are to the point where doing some things without supervision is okay so I started getting back into it. I bought a Lamgmuir Systems Crossfire in November and, as a hobbyist, so far it’s been great. Also, the Fusion 360 free license has been great but, with this job, I’m having issues. Until recently the most cuts I’ve had on a single piece have been four. Then I had a request for 150 pieces with eight cuts each. The Hobart, and my limited time, could not keep up with such a request so I went bigger than what I needed and got a Hypertherm 45 XP. After that job was done I got a request from a friend to make something for his bird dog he was going to retire due to age. This is the first ‘bigger’ job I’ve had and F360 gave me nothing but problems.

With the smaller jobs I liked F360 because I could manipulate the drawings easy (basically the shape of MT with things inside). With this ‘larger’ one (in my head that means more detail), F360 has become nothing but a headache when it comes to post and my computers processing power. I’ve heard a lot of great things about SheetCam and Les gave me a trail so I’ve been giving it a go.

I brought my initial drawing from F360 into Inkscape, which is as new to me as this whole process, and found it more difficult than F360 when it came to manipulating things. But, I’m not the guy that likes to post to Forums for help. So I’ve spent A LOT of time reading other forums and watching videos which helped me immensely when it came to the litany of errors SheetCam was giving me and how to prepare things from Inkscape for Plasma. Most of those, thanks to everyone who has posted a question or a video, about how to correct something has been answered.

At this point, to me, things look great. But I’m getting two warnings: 1) and the most concerning is, “Some Features Too Small To Machine.” The Second is, “Could Not Fit Lead In’s on Some Outlines.”

I get the second one as some cuts are on a line so there shouldn’t be a lead in. But the first is confusing me. I have gone back and forth between SheetCam and InkScape and found the places where SheetCam was giving me legitimate errors that I couldn’t see in InkScape and was able to fix them. What I can’t find is why I’m getting the warning that, “ Some Feature Were Too Small To Machine.” I’ve spent a lot of time looking and I can’t find any rogue things outside of the drawing that might be causing this. Any help is humbly appreciated.

Scott

[Les Newell]

Take a look at start point 16 or start point 55. You 'll have to zoom in pretty close to see you have some very small loops. For artistic work it is pretty common to get warnings like this. In most cases you can ignore them. If you have some outlines that are smaller than the plasma can cut you probably don't need them anyway. For mechanical parts you would probably need to pay more attention to warnings like this.
In the view menu turn off 'Show start points' and 'show rapids'. Turn on 'show true width' and 'show path ends'. This will give you a pretty uncluttered view of what you will actually end up with. Keep an eye out for white dots seemingly floating in in mid air. They are your tiny areas that SheetCam can't cut.

The development version of SheetCam is a bit more helpful with the warnings. If you hold your mouse over the exclamation point in the top left corner it will list all of the warnings. As you move your mouse over the warnings SheetCam will zoom in on the problem area so you can get a better idea of what is wrong.

“Could Not Fit Lead In’s on Some Outlines” is a similar issue. In this case the shapes are big enough for the cut to fit but too small for a leadin or leadout. This could leave your finished part with unsightly pierce marks. However as you're cutting thin sheet you probably don't have much of a pierce mark anyway.

[Vongehr]

Thanks for the reply. It makes more sense now that I look at it closely. I had a lot of errors to begin with, which were completely my fault because of the design in Inkscape. I really like how I can get closer in with SheetCam to see them. There were a lot of them that I couldn't even see in Inkscape but were clear in SheetCam. Great program, Les!

Scott

[keith1]

"...The development version of SheetCam is a bit more helpful with the warnings. If you hold your mouse over the exclamation point in the top left corner it will list all of the warnings. As you move your mouse over the warnings SheetCam will zoom in on the problem area so you can get a better idea of what is wrong."

I'm running 6.0.30 and I don't see anything that zooms in on any problem areas. Guessing I have a setting or two wrong?

[Les Newell]

That's the stable version. Only the development version has this feature.

[keith1]

Is it possible to grab that?

[Les Newell]

Of course. It's on the SheetCam downloads page. Note that it installs independently from the stable version. This means you need to install your license in that version as well. This is allowed as long as both are on the same computer.

[keith1]

Les, You are the BEST! If there is ever any doubt, THIS feature needs to make it into the next stable release. HUUUUGE!