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Author Topic: No Entities Shown  (Read 7071 times)

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Offline kolias

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No Entities Shown
« on: October 18, 2012, 10:42:29 AM »
I made my control panel layout in Acad V14 which includes various holes / squares / and letters. Since I want to do the cutting in two steps I made two drawings out of this drawing; one includes all the holes / squares and the other includes only the letters.

As per attached picture, when I open the DXF file which contains only the letters, Lazycam loads the DXF file but I see nothing on the drawing area and the info window tells me “No Entities Found” but the project window show all the Layers and chains. And when I post the code to Mach3, I see my drawing correctly and executing the code all seem to work fine. When I open the DXF which contains the holes / squares all are ok.

I Just wonder why I don’t see the letters drawing in LC
Nicolas

Offline kolias

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Re: No Entities Shown
« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2012, 10:44:25 AM »
Sorry, I made a mistake I guess but both attached files are the same
Nicolas

Offline ger21

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Re: No Entities Shown
« Reply #2 on: October 18, 2012, 11:48:33 AM »
Text in AutoCAD can not be converted to g-code. Back in the old days of R14, there was an Express Tool to explode text, that became included somewhere around 2004 I think. Without it, you can't use text created in R14.

You might want to try a program like OutlineArt to create vector .dxf text.
Gerry

2010 Screenset
http://www.thecncwoodworker.com/2010.html

JointCAM Dovetail and Box Joint software
http://www.g-forcecnc.com/jointcam.html

Offline kolias

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Re: No Entities Shown
« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2012, 03:57:56 PM »
Hmmm, that is a problem I didn’t know about it. I do have MastercamX5 and that is where I developed my control panel drawing but the fonts in MC are not good. I tried selecting various fonts but they all look alike at least on the screen and so I exported my drawing to Acad and made the letters there.

Since this is the control panel, the letters must align under each hole / square perfectly to describe the function of each pushbutton and I don’t know if I will be able to do this with OutlineArt or F-Engrave which I have.

I will have to experiment with both to see what I get and if not I might have to settle with the fonts provided by MC regardless is I like them or not.

The other funny part is as I said above when I export the letters file from LC to Mach, I could see all my letters on Mach and running the program on Mach I could see that it went and cut all letters (that was in my Laptop which is not connected to cnc). When I tried the same file on the cnc computer, LC says no file loaded and there is nothing loaded in any window
Nicolas

Offline ger21

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Re: No Entities Shown
« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2012, 04:51:41 PM »
I think I missed what you said.

Are you saying the LazyCAM created the g-code for the text, but it just wasn't displayed?
Gerry

2010 Screenset
http://www.thecncwoodworker.com/2010.html

JointCAM Dovetail and Box Joint software
http://www.g-forcecnc.com/jointcam.html

Offline RICH

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Re: No Entities Shown
« Reply #5 on: October 18, 2012, 05:37:04 PM »
No need to create two drawings as you can use layers to your advantage.
Additionaly you can name the layers such that they make sense as to what you are going to do with the layer entities.

Some other CAD programs allows one to explode text, such as  in the case of Autocad and then you can export  via dxf for use by LazyCam.
Microstation is a good example.

Something you can consider is to create your owne text using cad. They will be original and becuse they utilise arcs you will reduce
code a whole bunch and have much nicer machined text.

Just a few options,
RICH

Offline kolias

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Re: No Entities Shown
« Reply #6 on: October 18, 2012, 06:07:58 PM »
Yes Gerry it did and the attached files show that. But this is in my Laptop which is not connected to cnc. On the cnc computer I cant do that but tomorrow I will try to just copy the gcode and see what happens.

RICH I know about changing Layers etc but I found it more convenient to make two dwgs

But how can I create my own text in Acad?
Nicolas

Offline RICH

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Re: No Entities Shown
« Reply #7 on: October 19, 2012, 06:39:56 AM »
Quote
But how can I create my own text in Acad?

You draw the characters usings arcs and lines. There are two advantages to doing this:
1. It will reduce your code from the 10,000 lines that you now have to maybe a few hundred.
2.As shown in the pic you can arrange the text so that spacing (color) of characters or word is appropriate.
   Another advantage will be that shouid you want to do the letters in relief the tool one will be able to
   machine around and in the letters.

If you don't care about the above, then just do what you have but it will look crappy.

RICH

Offline kolias

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Re: No Entities Shown
« Reply #8 on: October 19, 2012, 09:07:59 AM »
Very interesting RICH and I will give it a try, thanks
Nicolas