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Pocket on edge of workpiece

Discussion in 'SketchUcam Bugs' started by Bert Kortenbach, Jan 16, 2016.

  1. Bert Kortenbach

    Bert Kortenbach New Member

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    Hi,
    I'm trying to make a pocket on the edge of my workpiece. SketchUCam creates it just fine, but when I try to make the outside cut of the workpiece SketchUCam thinks the pocket is part of the outline of the workpiece and cuts off the pocket-part.

    To recreate:
    Draw a square. Draw another (smaller) square inside it touching one of the sides of the first square (this will be the pocket). Make an outside cut of the first square --> Fail...
     
  2. swarfer

    swarfer Moderator Staff Member

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    Hi, it is quite easy, just watch this video for some an example.
    you will need to do it as 2 drawings, 2 cuts, and join them.
     
  3. Bert Kortenbach

    Bert Kortenbach New Member

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    OK, that is a nice work around. What I do not understand is why the outside cut tool wants to cut into my work piece rather than stay on the outside of it. Can you explain why that happens ?
    I found another work around and that is to offset the pocket .1 mm from the edge of the work piece. It would be nice if it would work without a work around since it is quite a lot of work to do all the neccesary work arounds.
     
  4. swarfer

    swarfer Moderator Staff Member

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    it is because of the way Sketchup works internally. SketchUcam has to get the shapes from Sketchup, and Sketchup does a bunch of background autosplitting and reshaping that is out of our control, ending up giving us the shape you saw outlined, we just don't know there is any other option.
    You can circumvent some of it by grouping, but that does make some things harder, in the end copying the drawing and doing it in sections is actually quicker and easier.
    SketchUcam is still a lot easier to use than things like Fusion360 where there is an option for everything, and you still have to select shapes or edges and tell it what to cut for every feature in the drawing.

    If only Sketchup had implemented real layers that do not interfere with each other...... as it is the only thing you can use layers for is to make some things invisible on demand because a line on layer 1 will still split and intersect a line on layer 2, whether visible or not.
     
  5. Bert Kortenbach

    Bert Kortenbach New Member

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    Sorry for babbling on about this, but could this work around be made into a feature of SketchUCam? I mean splitting the gcode generation process into groups? It may be helpful for sequencing the cutting operations as well. I really like the concept of having CAM integrated into Sketchup but I am struggling to get my toolpaths done in the right way. I will be happy to assist if you want to discuss alternative ideas...
     
  6. swarfer

    swarfer Moderator Staff Member

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    I believe it works just fine how it is already. You put the safearea around the stuff you want to generate for and go for it, as I show in my videos. (you did watch all of them , right? ;) )
    http://www.phlatforum.com/xenforo/forums/sketchucam-tutorials/
    or youtube, just search for 'swarfer42 sketchucam'

    By grouping cuts you can control cut order, and even have them overlap if needed.
    By duplicating the basic drawing and doing different cuts on each copy, you can achieve anything else you need, including precise depths and rough/final cuts.
    By selecting 'some' cuts before generating Gcode, you can generate only those cuts, giving you the option to do cuts in sections, or at different cut speeds, or whatever it is you need.

    and by using the built in Gcode Joiner tool, you can join all your files together to cut as one job, in any order.
     
  7. Bert Kortenbach

    Bert Kortenbach New Member

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    Hi Swarfer,

    Thank you very much for your help. I managed to get the part cut. SketchuCam is the best!
     

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