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Author Topic: Joining chains/entities in LazyCam  (Read 7232 times)

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Joining chains/entities in LazyCam
« on: September 29, 2007, 06:04:20 PM »
In LC v2.47 I do not appear to be able to join together two separate chains.
If I select two adjacent chains the option is greyed out in the menu displayed by a right key click.
This means the cutter lifts clear then restarts the cut when it should just carry on around the profile.

Has this option been lost in these later versions or am I mis-undertanding something?

tmsmith
Re: Joining chains/entities in LazyCam
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2007, 09:40:48 AM »
Have you tried to autoclean? It is under the tools. That works for me most of the time. Another thing you might try is to change the tolerance before you import the file. That will tell LazyCAM how close lines must be before they should be considered one chain. Sometimes there are tiny gaps between lines that look continuous on the screen. If you zoom in in your cad program, sometimes you can see what is causing the problem for LazyCAM. I am not sure about 2.47.  I'm using version 2.02 because I can't get pocketing and offsetting to give good results with 2.47.
Re: Joining chains/entities in LazyCam
« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2007, 05:57:03 PM »
Thanks for the reply Ergoman.
Yes I do use autoclean and the DXF file was produced by AutoCAD and imported as v12.
I cut the part and it is dimensionaly spot on but cut in a far from efficient manner ie cutting disconnected chains despite the use of optimise.
The lines were laid out using the osnap technique.
I will try your suggestion of increasing the tolerance which is set at 1thou; oh but I was working in mms so that may be the problem.

tmsmith
Re: Joining chains/entities in LazyCam
« Reply #3 on: October 01, 2007, 08:39:56 AM »
Hmmm... You are doing everything right. Using snap is as good at it gets. I think it is an issue with the program. I'd contact Brian or Art and send them the files you are using. I know when importing, sometimes I set tolerance as low as 0.01 even though I'm using clean geometry drawn correctly.  When I hit the autoclean button I'll see if LazyCam joined the chain I want. If not I'll hit it again and it gives me a different result. It toggles back and forth between the options. You can see this in the rapid lines as well as by clicking on the tool path. I don't know about 2.47 version... but the approach works good for 2.02 LazyCAM.

Another suggestion... For me, I've had to learn to edit G-Code. It isn't that hard to do and there are many tutorials available on line to help you. In your case, all you have to do is find the command that is moving the cutter up.  You can do this by watching a simulated run in Mach3 and jotting down the line number. It should look like g0 z (height in mm). Use Notepad to kill that command and your cutter will stay down. Learning G-Code has other benefits too like making subroutines to cut parts out using many shallow passes -or- cutting the same part in many locations for real production work.

Another suggestion, lower the rapid movement height to just slightly above your work surface. Let's say your surface is at 0 mm and you want to cut to a depth of -2 mm. Set your height that the cutter moves from toolpath to toolpath to 1 mm. This won't keep the cutter from wasting some time, but it will decrease the amout of time it wastes.

Hope this helps.   
Re: Joining chains/entities in LazyCam
« Reply #4 on: October 01, 2007, 06:43:56 PM »
Ergoman, thanks we have cracked it.

Increasing the tolerance setting resulted in the chains being joined.
I also found I was leaving points in the drawing which LC then interpreted as drilling points and these could be eliminated by 'remove points'
Funny, I had not noticed this before.

I also tried your gcode editing and that worked well too.

Thanks a lot

tmsmith
Re: Joining chains/entities in LazyCam
« Reply #5 on: October 02, 2007, 10:36:41 AM »
Cool! Happy to help.
Re: Joining chains/entities in LazyCam
« Reply #6 on: June 15, 2009, 09:12:09 PM »

Another suggestion... For me, I've had to learn to edit G-Code. It isn't that hard to do and there are many tutorials available on line to help you. In your case, all you have to do is find the command that is moving the cutter up.  You can do this by watching a simulated run in Mach3 and jotting down the line number. It should look like g0 z (height in mm). Use Notepad to kill that command and your cutter will stay down. Learning G-Code has other benefits too like making subroutines to cut parts out using many shallow passes -or- cutting the same part in many locations for real production work.

Hope this helps.   

Hi Ergoman,  another newbie here.

I cannot connect chains in Lcam either (perhaps becuae I have the demo version?)
However based on your comment above I can just adjust the code.
I know the exact comand you are referring to, so do I just delete that gcode line and that is it or do I have to substitute any code in it's place?

Thanks
Rich
Re: Joining chains/entities in LazyCam
« Reply #7 on: June 16, 2009, 06:33:19 AM »
Greetings Rich,

That's all there is to it... just delete the command to move the router back up and the cutter will stay down. You could just change the z height in the rapid command, but if you are not moving the cutter, I'd just get rid of that command all together. I'd recommend practicing on a very simple program first. Soon you'll be able to read the g-code and right away recognize what the commands mean.

Thanks much,
Shane Sidebottom
Re: Joining chains/entities in LazyCam
« Reply #8 on: June 16, 2009, 07:29:49 AM »
Thanks Shane. I'll give this a try after work :)