I often reuse projects only changing the thickness of the material. When it changes I need to change all the toolpaths. Some times this seems to take longer than the cut. Please make the Use Stock Bottom functionality into a button such that the toolpath depth would always track the current material thickness as set using the gear icon. Even better, allow for +/- adjustments. I often add 0.1mm to the depth so I will be sure to cut through. I would like to set “Stock Bottom + 0.1mm”. Or for “half way” something like “Stock Bottom - 50%”.
I would guess to be fair to people who use zero at the bottom, the “Use Stock Top” would need to work the same way.
As @WillAdams suggests I always use the t on projects I cut through. Just changing the stock thickness and saving the c2d file updates all the tool paths that have the t on the max depth. I always use the bottom of material in setup on project where I cut through. So all I have to do is change the X and Y zero for a new project or if you are cutting the same project with a different thickness you are good to go after changing the stock thickness in set up.
If you choose “use stock bottom” in a tool path and not the t you have to manually update all the tool paths if you change stock thickness. The t saves a lot of time and using bottom of stock (spoilboard) saves my spoilboard. When I used top of stock in setup I either cut into the spoilboard or left an onion skin I had to clean up.
@WillAdams is talking about another design tool, OpenSCAD, not Carbide Create. And I have tried setting “use stock bottom” on a toolpath then changing the stock bottom and the toolpath does not automatically update. I still had to visit each of the many toolpaths to re-press “use stock bottom”.
I have not seen any sort of parametric dimensioning in Carbide Create. If there is, where is it documented? I can’t find ANY documentation.
It was mentioned in the download notes and has been discussed here a bit.
or see:
Note that all features in the current version of Carbide Create should be covered in the latter document — if there’s something you are searching for which isn’t present, let me know and we’ll look into it.
Aha! The discussion about these variables did not match any of my searches. And the example I saw it was not obvious that variables were being used because it was too tiny in the inline images.
Thanks for pointing these out.
So, is the toolpath depth special? It does not seem to be expanded when entered. I used “t + 0.5” mm. It shows as that when I look at it later. When one hovers over the toolpath in the toolpath list it currently shows name, bit and time, Perhaps it could also show the calculated depth, too.
However in the examples using w and h they seem to be immediately expanded. Does this mean that if the raw material gets wider the values need to be changed?
Perhaps sizes and coordinates of objects entered as (w / 2) won’t get expanded in the entry fields, but w / 2 will (or vice versa). But then there may be a need to help the user figure out what the current value is. Another hover-over?
We could go ever further: Let people define variables on a “special parameter” page. Soon we will have something as complicated as Excel formulas. Or maybe, embed Python
The T for thickness when used in a toolpath (such as for Max Depth) staying as a variable is a feature which allows one to set up a file, then change the Stock thickness, then have the toolpaths dynamically update.
The variables being available in the Design pane is a convenience, but no more, since they are instantly converted into the values of said parameters at that moment.
