Messages

1

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: Erase extra lines in drawing

« on: April 02, 2021, 23:18:47 pm »

Select all the circles, then right-click on a circle in the selection and when the pop-up menu appears click Edit > Break at Intersections, use a tolerance of .001".
Then click on and delete the segments you don't want.  You then may want to join the remaining segments that can form a closed polygon.  Do this by selecting all of the remaining arcs, right-click on a highlighted line then click Edit > Join on the pop-up menu.

2

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: software for modifying drawings

« on: March 31, 2021, 21:11:01 pm »

No, I'm not making fun of anything, just trying to understand what appeared to me to be a very nice "trick of the trade" to learn.
Thanks Bob

3

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: software for modifying drawings

« on: March 31, 2021, 17:16:43 pm »

  One trick is to import an image, engrave op it impoirt the engrace code, and convert it to geometry.  All in CamBam.  Seems crude, but I have used it successfully. 

Bob, could you please explain "engrave op it impoirt the engrace code" ?

4

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: Antivirus question

« on: March 19, 2021, 20:01:17 pm »

I guess the next thing to ask is whether your Win10 login is an Admin account.  Have you tried running CB 1.0 exe "Run As Administrator" to see if that makes a difference?

5

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: Antivirus question

« on: March 19, 2021, 19:48:38 pm »

Some plugins are only for version 0.9.8.  Sounds like the plugin functions you describe may fall into that category.  Plugin download pages will say which versions the plugin can be used for.

6

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: Help with 3D milling

« on: February 27, 2021, 01:44:23 am »

Me too.  Now the CB 3D capabilities and how some things are done has finally sunk in.

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Scripts and Plugins / Re: Spiral Toolpath from Profile

« on: February 26, 2021, 23:14:48 pm »

Eddy, yes, and I have.  The trick is remembering what I've seen and read in between times.   

David, an excellent idea, and I have already done so, thanks.

8

Scripts and Plugins / Re: Spiral Toolpath from Profile

« on: February 26, 2021, 21:17:09 pm »

Wow, I'm just discovering this thread and this plugin.

Thanks Eddy and David for the years of effort that was put in to refine this plugin and make it available to us.
I hope to learn to us it.

9

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: Help with 3D milling

« on: February 26, 2021, 20:23:05 pm »

Wow! Great, instructive video David.  Thanks

10

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: Drill MOP Spiral Depth Increment on MDO plywood

« on: February 26, 2021, 20:08:55 pm »

Success!

I had two versions of my Dr. Pepper (or any 2-liter plastic bottle) dust collector, that I used for plastic and wood, one for my long .125"diameter, 1" flutes x 3" shank bits and one for shorter .125" diameter, .5" or .625" x 1" or 2" shank bits.  I was able to make minor modifications for the shorter dust collector so it fit higher up on the router body thereby extending the collet further through the down-flow deflector while giving the suction hose intake manifold good clearance above the work piece cutting surface.

I tested this setup on the first side, vertical upright computer desk support pieces and it worked wonderfully, plunging .125" diameter, 2-flute,  .625" long flutes down to the full stock thickness plus a little (-.76") while doing a Spiral Mill (CW) Drill MOP with a .25" hole diameter @ 30ipm.

So, I'm glad to have a more sound method for milling .75" MDO stock with a shorter bit solution that can realize faster IPMs.  Thanks to David and Bubba for there suggestions.   I'll have to give the .5" flute x 1" shank version of this bit a try next time.

Here is a photo.  Its a photo of the test fit that identified the side openings I would have to enlarge:

11

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: Drill MOP Spiral Depth Increment on MDO plywood

« on: February 19, 2021, 18:48:38 pm »

I've looked into a dust collector solution for my machine like David and Bubba shared photos of that they have (are) using, but unfortunately I do not have a good way of mounting the stationary collector to my Y-axis without the resulting collector shoe becoming far larger than it really needs to be.

But I've not given up with finding an "out-of-box" solution or adapting my router mounted, 2-liter Dr. Pepper bottle dust collector so it can work with shorter bits.

12

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: Drill MOP Spiral Depth Increment on MDO plywood

« on: February 17, 2021, 17:15:42 pm »

Thanks jimmer, the compression cut end mills are great for getting aggressive DOCs in wood.  I had read up on them a few weeks ago (don't have any myself for now).

13

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: Drill MOP Spiral Depth Increment on MDO plywood

« on: February 17, 2021, 02:39:49 am »

OK so you use tabs, that's good    

I didn't (still can't) see any evidence of them in the photo, maybe that's because of how you remove them?   How many tabs were there on each of the profiles?

All total there were 24 tabs, 12 on outside oval profile, the first profile to be successfully milled, and 12 on the inside oval profile the one that was 3/4" complete when the bit broke.  After the piece was unscrewed from the table, I cut thru both ends of the tabs with a fine miter hand saw to free up all three pieces.

The purpose for my wanting to cut the thin-walled oval was to test how much and what degree bit vibration occurred which would have manifested itself with the walls of the cut not having undulations.

My .015", .025, .05 and .125" DOCs at 20-45 IPM, 10000-13000 rpm in this 3/4" MDO plywood for other part milled produced beautiful, straight and smooth wall profile cuts.  So this was just a test to see how much speed I could get in cutting.   

14

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: Drill MOP Spiral Depth Increment on MDO plywood

« on: February 16, 2021, 23:27:55 pm »

Like this? 

That looks ridiculously flexible to me so I'm not surprised that the piece got dragged sideways by the cutting forces.

I see from the previous pictures and video that this is your usual clamp method (external perimeter clamp or corner screws, with stock only just bigger than the piece).  Are you using something sticky under the workpiece as well? 

I'm surprised you don't have more accuracy problems, even with delicate DOC and speeds.  I'm no expert on clamping because I mostly use vacuum hold down, but when I do clamp I am very wary of flexing. Where possible I put screws through the workpiece.

If you are going to experiment with more aggressive cuts try using larger borders on your stock. Even better use tabs to retain the stiffness in the stock.

Another tactic would be to use aggressive cuts followed by a shallow cut at full depth, eg 3 cuts of 0.0.22" followed by 0.10" ,  take all the parts down to eg 90% depth before cutting any of them free. 



I've only just started using 18mm birch plywood.  One tactic I've used for a clean cut is to score all the cuts using 1mm doc with my 1/8" downcut bit, and then do the serious removal using my regular 1/4" upcut with 3x doc 6mm.  I'm sure 2x 9mm doc would work too.

My bad, I thought you were referring to the video I posted a few days ago.

That piece had two screws which are evident in the photo.  The lower piece was the one cut out with holding tabs securing it in place on both the profile cuts.  Granted, the automatic 1/8" holding tabs were not sufficient when doing the inner profile cut which no doubt resulted in vibrations.  This was a piece of scrap to test Bubba's DOC and feedrate, nothing more.

My past practice over the past decade has been far more conservative.

15

CamBam help (General usage) / Re: Cutting an angle in the Z axis - How to?

« on: February 16, 2021, 20:08:26 pm »

Knocker,
I can't supply drawings or pictures, because all the designs I manufacture are proprietary to the customers for whom I do them.

But I've done LOTS of 'sloped sides' and sloped+contoured-bottom forms for customers' casting molds, all using CB's 2.5D capabilities.

I have done many hundreds of projects in 2D and 2.5D, but only a small shoebox full of projects that required a 'true' 3D package.  I find them a pain to learn (and re-learn, as infrequently as I need them).

Lloyd

Verbal description of examples works perfectly.  So are you then referring to the Profile MOP's "Side Profile" feature?  I've used that in the past, back in 2011 I made my 2nd DIY CNC table, for creating timing belt hold-down  and tensioning blocks .  In this example the sloped side profile parameters were perfect for forming a series of rectangular sloped profiles that were mirror images to the timing belts cog profiles.

But, are there other MOPs with this useful type of feature besides the Profile MOP?