I drew a rudder assembly up in sketchup and then tried to create the gcode for it. I was not successful at it. Here is my files can someone tell me where I went wrong?

Attached files practice rudder.cnc (266 B)Â practice rudder.skp (40.1 KB)Â

 

Orion13,

Have you watched my tutorial on how to use the phlatscript? viewtopic.php?f=99&p=15763 I assume you did, as the phlatlines are there. But check out the beginning where it shows how to apply the safe cutting area with the safe cutting area tool. The way you are doing does work for this situation, but not the right way.

The reason the gcode doesn't generate is because it is an component. It needs to be a group. Or you can just leave it plain ungrouped, also.

But there is something else strange. Your original rudder lines are missing. How come? The outer cut phlatlines are just offset lines, so the original lines should be there. You should not delete them if that's what happened?

Also, there is something wrong with your face, the colors. Might be the same reason the original lines is gone, has caused it too. But I don't have a guess as to why. One indicator something is wrong is the colors of the face when you apply the inside and outside cut lines. It's hard to describe, but part of the face between the original line and phlatline will turn a off white and the other part of the face will remain the dark color. And opposite for the inside cut. Try it out on a simple sqaure, so you know how it should look. Zoom in and take a close look, if needed.

-Kwok

 

7up,

Thanks for looking at it. I am happy to know it wasn't anything major. What is strange is that I don't remember putting that square around it. I kept trying to figure out what it was and where it came from. I must have done it when I was trying to select all of it.

Orion13

 

The strange thing is the rudder does have a face. I tried reversing it, but it's white on both sides. So ET where did your original line come from, just hidden in the white face? When I looked at it in sketchup, there were only phlatlines.

 

Ok, so back to the drawing board. I screwed the whole thing.

Orion

 

Well, basically it's messed up and not a simple repair. Something more happend here than meets the eye. If you use the phlat eraser tool, nothing is left except the hinge line. So there were no original lines, like they were deleted.

-Kwok

 

Ok I went back and drew the entire rudder around the perimeter. I just want to make sure it is good so far. When do you make it a component? After you outline the shape and it shades in or after you put the lines in for the fold area?

Orion13 Attached files practice rudder2.skp (39.4 KB)Â

 

This time it actually has some code in it.

Attached files Rudder part 2.cnc (3 KB)Â Rudder part 2.skp (184 KB)Â

 

Yes I did go back and put in the tabs.


Orion13

 

Looks ok, this time. The "Rudder part 2.skp" file that is. I see you left it ungrouped which is perfectly fine. If you want to control the cut order yourself, only then do you need to group. Remember it's group not component.

-Kwok

 

Then what exactly does the component do for it?

Orion13

 

Component doesn't do anything. You are supposed to use group or not grouped for the phlatscript. If you use component, it will not generate gcode. That's one of the thing wrong with you initial drawing. It was a component, so generated no gcode.

If you are asking what the difference between component and group, then just make a copy of a component. They are linked. If you change one then the other changes also. Useful when you have alot of the same thing that you want easy to change. But you have to explode them, when you want to use the phlatscript.

I did find a problem, and it's the fold line didn't show up in the gcode. I don't have much experience with fold lines, but I deleted yours and the ones I put in worked. I noticed your's were in wide mode and I was not. So try switching out of wide mode by hitting the "w" keyboard key. If you look carefully the 2 modes have a slightly different resulting color line. If you hit the ? icon, you get the phlathelp documentation that explains the difference.

Are you using a viewer, so you can view the resulting gcode. Either use this one: viewtopic.php?f=185&t=1128
Or ncplot has a free version. http://www.ncplot.com/ncplotfree/ncplotfree.htm

-Kwok

 

I added something above, if you already read it.

 

Ok, I think I have it down now. Thanks for the help. Here is my final for the night. I did the rudder and added the horizontal stab to the sheet. I looked at them in the NCPlot and it looks good.

Orion13 Attached files Rudder part 4.cnc (7.3 KB)Â Rudder part 4.skp (214.6 KB)Â

 

Ok, looks good. I think you got the hang of it, now. Congrats, everything is there.

I didn't mention this before, because I didn't want to confuse things. But you see that sharp point you have facing left on the rudder. It probably doesn't need to be that sharp. You can make it more square, fatter or less pointy. It's easy to finish it sharp, when you actually build the plane. I cuts fine but look at the way the lines cross in the gcode and the extra cutting that doesn't form the part.

-Kwok

 

Kwok,

Yeah I wasn't happy with the way that curve turned out on the front. I also don't care for how I rounded the edges of the control surfaces. This did let me, for the most part, put a bi-plane model I'm working on into the software. My major concern about purchasing a cnc machine is getting the designs from real world into the computer. I've never been artistic or anything and I use curved stencils for doing it in the real world. Thanks for looking at this for me. I will be playing around with sketchup over the next week or so to make sure I'm not surprised by something I can't figure out.

Orion