I’ve designed my waste board and tested each block of holes and t-track channels and all works perfectly, but I’ve decided to add corner and side holes (outside the threaded holes) to mount the board onto 12mm dowels fitted into the baseboard.
Firstly, is making the corresponding holes in the baseboard a warranty/stability problem?
Secondly, the waste board has already been cut (but not installed) and the mounting holes are an afterthought, so I exported the updated toolpath as a separate GCode file (essentially disabling the other toolpaths then saved the GCode as a separate *.nc file). Is there any reason this wouldn’t work?
Also, what’s the (other than obvious) difference(s) between exporting the file directly to CM? I’m sure I saw that somewhere…
Nope, every one needs to attach their wasteboard on top of their baseboard at some point, no issue with drilling a few holes in the MDF baseboard from a structural standpoint.
No, it should work just fine. You may want to double check with a G-code viewer (e.g. ncviewer.com, or CAMOtics) that the G-code file you regenerated actualy only contains what you want. It should be the case if you disabled the other toolpaths, but you never know.
Sending G-code from CC to CM is just a convenience feature, there is no difference between doing that and saving the G-code file to disk and then loading it in CM manually.
I like to always save my G-code file to disk, for later inspection if anything bad happens, but to each their own.
Note that the worst case with the MDF baseplate is one just has to fashion a replacement — remove it, source a suitable piece of MDF, clamp them together, transfer the holes using transfer punches and drills/countersinks.
