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How to plung a hole

Discussion in 'General Talk Forum' started by Ringo Davis, Nov 4, 2014.

  1. Ringo Davis

    Ringo Davis Member

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    I'm trying to cut an RCpowers type firewall on my little CNC machine. Where the motor mounts I just want to plunge the bit in to make a tiny hole for the wood screw. There are 8 plunge points. But when I generate the CNC code it either has 0 plunge point or 3 or 4. NNot sure what I'm doing wrong. The PDF of the firewall had big circles where the hole go. I put crosshairs in the circles to find the center then used the plunge tool in the center. It makes a smaller circle on the drawing, but generating the Gcode some are missing. Am I using the tool wrong or is it something in my drawing? It is attached. I used the latest version of everything.
    Also I hope this is where to post this.
    Thanks
    Ringo
     

    Attached Files:

  2. swarfer

    swarfer Moderator Staff Member

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    Hi Ringo, you are not doing anything 'wrong' except that the plunge tool does not like having intersecting lines.
    So, if you remove any lines that intersect with the little 'here is a hole purple line', then your code will be fine.

    However, I have been working on some new code to work around this and you get to test it (-:
    So, download this http://iwr.ru.ac.za/~david/phlat/SketchUcam-1_2a.rbz
    and install it in Sketchup (you do not need to uninstall anything), restart Sketchup.
    now, open your drawing and remove all those plunge holes, then redraw them.
    now your generated Gcode should include those holes without any problems since each hole is now in a group that overlays the intersecting lines without interference.

    Let me know how it goes.
    (note, this is not an official release, and the contents of that file may change at any time)
     
  3. Ringo Davis

    Ringo Davis Member

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    I downloaded the new version and then did Windows-preferences-extensions and loaded the new file. Is that all I need to do?
    I made a couple copies of the firewall
    In the first copy I deleted all the cuts and redid them, placing the plunges on the crosshairs. I get no plunge cuts that way.
    On the 2nd copy I deleted the crosshairs and guessed at the center of the circle and I get plunge cuts, but can't tell exactly where the center is.
     
  4. Ringo Davis

    Ringo Davis Member

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    here is the file
     

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  5. swarfer

    swarfer Moderator Staff Member

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    nearly all, you MUST restart Sketchup after the install
    ah, sorry, you need to delete any horizontal lines that overlay the little purple plunge markers.
    lines at any other angle do not matter, but horizontal (just the bit that overlays the purple bit) are a problem. the grouping solves other overlays, but not this one.

    so, maybe if you make your center crosshairs into T shapes lying on their right sides like this
    Code:
       |
    ---|
       |
    yes, just tested this and it works perfectly.

    note that because the holes are now groups, they will be drilled in group order, rather than self optimized 'next closest first'. Thus you can use the 'group reorder' tool to set the order in which the holes are drilled. You can use 'entity info' (right click a selected hole) to set the group name so you can see it in the gcode.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2014
  6. Ringo Davis

    Ringo Davis Member

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    I did the crosshairs, then the plunge, then deleted the crosshairs and it worked fine.
    Next time I'll do the crosshairs at a 45 degree angle. Still find the center and not be horizontal.
    Thanks
     

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