Machsupport Forum
G-Code, CAD, and CAM => LazyCam (Beta) => Topic started by: propellerhead on January 01, 2011, 03:48:46 PM
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I am trying to get a Celtic five fold knot which I drew in Solid Works and exported as a DXF to work in Lazy Cam. This is a group of five interlocking circles. I have trimed all the circles where they cross so as to have a bunch of closed entities or shapes. In LC they they don't want to act like separate entities. They want to group together and generate bizarre code. I know this is a terrible description. I have had this problem before whenever I have multible images, like say 8 or 9 fret markers on some mother of pearl. It will only recognize 7 or so of them. I have worked on this for hours and tried everything I can think of with various clean and optimize options. I need help please! This is holding up the instrument building. I have attached the DXF file.
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p...head,
When you inport the dxf into LC and then clean it, you should see that there is a rapid to each closed section, if not,SETUP>Loading Option.... and set the
connection line tolerance to 0.0001". Then re-inport the drawing and see if there is are rapids to all the closed sections.
A few pics attached showing that it imports fine, then i just did machining of the circular outlines, tried doing an outside offset and seems its trashing a few circles.
You can select individual closed section and define the machining.....
Not sure what you are trying to do with it.
RICH
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Hi Rich. Thanks for your help. It does help to set the tol. to .0001. This helps it bring in all the elements and identify the separate chains. What I am trying to do is cut this out of a piece of 0.050 mothor of pearl for inlay. The interlocking circles are what I am looking for. So all the little shapes inside and the outline have to be cut. A combination of mostly inside offsets and one outside offset. I have tried using a 1/16" and 1/32" cutter diameter and various clean and optimize scenarios with no success. I keep getting weird tool paths generated.
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I forgot to say that when I import it, it does have rapids going to each chain. After I clean it and optimize it I don't have rapids going to all the chains. How do I fix this? Or what causes it?
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After I clean it and optimize it I don't have rapids going to all the chains. How do I fix this? Or what causes it?
Is it the pro license?
Nobody knows what causes LC to do some of the things it does and maybe that is why it is Beta and will remain that way.
You can quickly just provide pre drawn inside and outside offsets in CAD as a work around when something is buggy and get the pathing.
Sometimes just enlarging the scale of the piece generating the code and rescaling in Mach is a work around.
One of the things LC will do is change the pathing because the tool diameter is to large to use in the offset, same for a sharp corner on an inside since it can't be offset......
I can play with the dxf and probably find a solution. The advantage here is that i can do ten things to it quicker than i can type this reply.....
BTW...I don't yell at LC so she still kind of likes me, ;D
RICH
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It is the Pro version.
I love Lazy Cam, I just wish it was not so buggy. If I knew of something just like LC that ALWAYS worked I would probably buy it. But for sheer simplicity LC is hard to beat.
I had come to the conclusion that the shape may just be too complex for LC. It also for sure has some things even a 1/32" cutter won't do at the scale I have....but pegheads are only so big.
For the moment I drew a Triquetra...also called a trinity. It's another Celtic symbol. It is somewhat less complex and has no issues with tool dia.
Drawing the path in cad is an interesting work around..I might have to try that.
I appreciate the time you spend trying to help me understand this software.
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There is a manual for LC in Members Docs and most anything i know is in it.
RICH
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Here is another approach.
I took your dxf and frerw a .020" raius at each angle point , eccept for the smallest 4 profiles which are too small for a 1/32" cutter.
Then all worked well except for the dinky ones.
If you could scale the knot UP very slightly, it might work OK for ya.
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oh....i see now you want inside offset, not pocket. still works OK tho
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Thanks for the help everyone!
Hey Overloaded...is frerw a command in LC or did you use some other program to edit?
I use Solid Works for cad
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heheheheh fat fingers and not using the spell checker is what that is lol.
"threw a .020" radius" is what it's supposed to be.
I used Autodesk, by Autocad.
Limited but cheap.
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Hey Russ,
Good to see your LC memory is still good.... ;D
RICH
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jus a couple of the Cardinal rules are burned in from way before the manuals.
"if an inside radius is not at least the cutter radius (+.001 helps), you're flirting with disaster".
That, and the medication I'm on helps too. (It helps keep the economy going.......for the folks at Anheuser Busch anyway)
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For the "pain in the neck ones" you can also select the closed entities, move the cutting start point to somewhere else on its profile ( click again where you want it to stay).
When you post code make sure you turn off profiles / chains not wanted.
What is causing the pain is that LC is automaticaly selecting the start point, but, when trying to create an offset at those points it senses that you will not stay on profile ...i guess ? and thus either dosen't do the pathing / rounds / or changes the path " to help the user avoid a machining error".
RICH
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BTW,
Fillet Corners commmand in the Tools tab is not functional to my knowledge but would have been a quick fix for some of this.
You can hack away at the command.......i just don't remember how much effort i put into it .....was two years ago!
Better to just do as Russ said and CAD it.
RICH