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Drilling holes using Lazy cam
« on: April 26, 2008, 01:04:05 PM »
Hey everyone.

I have been using Corel Draw to set up driliing 1/4" holes in a piece of aluminum.  But I can't seem to get lazy cam to do anything with the holes that I have drawn using any of it's drill options.  All I want, is to draw the holes using corel draw, and have lazy cam set them up for drilling.  The only way I seem to get around the drilling problem is to redraw my holes as small as posible and have lazy cam seem them as dots, but what a pain.

Any help would be great.  Thanks.
Re: Drilling holes using Lazy cam
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2008, 01:12:15 PM »
Not familiar with Corel Draw, used LC a little a while ago.  Can you draw a point where you want to drill?  I think that's what LC needs for drilling.

Monte

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Re: Drilling holes using Lazy cam
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2008, 06:37:34 PM »
Hi JonnyElectronny,
  Just go up to the free wizards at the top of Mach3
and choose from a few different styles of drilling programs...
All you do is fill in where, how deep and the shape of hole pattern. Works great, unless you have other applications
such as a weird shape.

Give it a go!
Glenn
Don't assume anything.....it'll make a Manager out of U and Me!
Re: Drilling holes using Lazy cam
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2008, 06:57:17 PM »
Well, I suppose that those programs would work fine if all I had to do is drill holes. 
Usually I have a drawing that requires some shapes to be cut out with some bolt holes in specific locations to those shapes. 
I guess my real question is........What is "drill sel circles" & "drill rad circles" used for in Lazy Cam?  My holes are in my drawings, now I just need them drilled.  To me doesn't seem like a real problem, I think I must be missing something real simple.  I have done what Monte above suggested, and it does work.....sort of.  But Lazy cam see's my dot as a line, no matter how small I draw it.  Just seems that Lazy Cam should just see the hole and centre my bit and drill.
Re: Drilling holes using Lazy cam
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2009, 04:11:16 AM »
Hi,

I'm new to Mach3 and LazyCAM and I have the same problem....

I want to export a LazyCAM file to Mach 3 that has 45 tiny holes to drill.  If I export the current code then the drill will try to follow the outline of the drill holes whereas all I want is to plunge and return.  It would be annoying to alter all 45 sections of g-code!

Does anyone have a suggestion?

Thanks
Richard.

Re: Drilling holes using Lazy cam
« Reply #5 on: May 20, 2009, 07:33:44 AM »
2 ways to change circles to drill points in LCam.
Select the ones you want (single/multiple toggle or hold Shift key), then "Drill selected circles".
Or.."Drill rad. circles", then enter the radius of the largest hole you want included.
RC
Re: Drilling holes using Lazy cam
« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2009, 06:26:34 PM »
Ok, here is what I found after a year or two of using lazy cam.

If lazy cam does not see your holes as .....well, holes.  Then it assumes it is a line instead, and therefore will not drill them as such.
I use Corel Draw X-4, and it will not for the life of me, convert holes properly, or arcs as well.
I used another program called "ViaCad" and finally..... Lazy cam drilled my holes using the drill holes command.
I guess the problem is in the conversion from Corel to DXF file.  Corel Draw doesn't convert properly.
I used a program called "DXF tools for Corel" and it corrected all the problems in the conversion, but it only works on Corel 12 on Windows XP.
It was I good program and I wish Corel would implement it in their program.  Or at the very least,  I wish Lazy cam would come up with a fix.

JonnyElectronny
Re: Drilling holes using Lazy cam
« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2009, 06:35:22 PM »
So Richard......

To answer your question, check to see that the program you are using correctly converts your holes to a proper DXF file.
It maybe converting holes into tiny small segmented straight lines.  If so Lazy cam will not be able to use the drill hole feature.
Try another Cad program and then check the results.

J.
Re: Drilling holes using Lazy cam
« Reply #8 on: May 21, 2009, 04:25:20 AM »
Guys,

Thanks for your help here, I'll give your ideas a try and report back.

Incidentally I'm using a very old version of Microstation CAD to export my DXF.

vmax549

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Re: Drilling holes using Lazy cam
« Reply #9 on: May 21, 2009, 09:49:04 AM »
IF you can just put a DOT where you want the hole LCam will drill it just fine. It must either be a DOT or a true circle maded of arcs for Lcam to see the drill point.

(;-) TP