Toolpath Tiling in Carbide Create Pro

Even with the edge…over a long piece, the slightest deviation from that edge is a problem. Unless I’m locking it in top and bottom with registration pins, I have never had a perfect line. I mean, near perfect and my customers would not likely complain (or notice) - but not really good enough for me.

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It might be a good idea to have pin locations already done in your wasteboard. Then just set up the tiling operation around that spacing.

1 - Run your file to put some shallow pin locations on the back.

2 - Remove material.

3 - place pins in pre-determined locations.

4 - Flip material, place in first pin locations, run first part.

5 - Move to second locations, run sending half.

That’s what I’ve come up with to make growth charts and tall door signs. :slight_smile:

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What I’ve done is made sleds using my CNC that the work rides on…and those have CNC-placed holes for metal dowels. Then, my designs use the same layout for those holes to create registration holes ahead for the next tile after they cut the current tile.

Your tile size cannot be maximized to the CNC bed using this method, because you need to cut the registration hole for the NEXT tile…which technically can’t be on this tile’s workspace. So I tile shorter than my piece and then allow the hole to be cut above it. I wonder if that will cause problems for the new tilling system…since it won’t see the hole that’s located in the “next” tile.

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Your registration holes can be spaced within the cutting area and still allow movement within a space. Spacing 3 holes 24" appart (on a SO5 Pro in my case) allows you a 24" movement for a tile. That gets you 6".

But a sled could make for more. I like that idea. :slight_smile:

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Agree. A square reference edge and reference pins are a must.

I opted for 6 registration pins on my SO3 for this project.

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I remember that project now. Loved that one since I’ve thought about doing just that too make a rack for my Outback. :slight_smile:

So nice and easy to use! Keep up the good work guys!

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For example if one wanted to cover a 12 x 8 wall with a routed design made up of six 4x4 feet square panels. Indexing in x and y is the only way. Or maybe this does not fit the definition of tiling. (Cutting a large design on multiple panels that fit together vs cutting a design on a panel longer than the machine area). To be able to design a large panel and divide it up at will for routing on multiple panels would be very nice. This is not indexing physically but from the softwares perspective, the same?

It’s different. For tiling we’re clipping the toolpath or the regions that span multiple tiles but everything will eventually get cut into a single piece of stock so we don’t consider the borders between tiles beyond the clipping.

If you’re turning a design into multiple physical tiles, then you end up needing to add additional contour cuts to ensure that you end up with separate physical tiles that can be merged. This is not something we currently do, and it’s not something we’re planning on at this point, because it seems like the usage-to-support-problem ratio is low.

That said, we did add clipping in the X direction when tiling is enabled so it’s definitely possible to achieve this on your own using the feature as-is. (You’d be able to work on a design much wider than the machine and the toolpaths will also get clipped in X.)

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Can you elaborate. I’m not seeing anything in 754.

Make a pocket or toolpath that’s way bigger in X than the stock. It will be clipped to the width of the stock plus the X margin defined in the tiling setup.

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Ah, OK. I see it now. So you’d still have to make 4 copies & position them to the stock, but you don’t have to chop the design up into sections. Cool! :smiley:

We just uploaded 755 to Carbide Create Beta Downloads with some fixes for Tiling:

  • (FIX) Texture tool paths were not properly clipped by tiling.
  • (FIX) Contour toolpaths without any offset were not clipped by the toolpath tile.
  • (FIX) Better V-cutter simulation.
  • (FIX) “w” and “h” variables were incorrect in expressions.
  • (NEW) Added “Shapeoko 5 Pro” as an option for the machine type.
  • (NEW) Added expression parsing in the tile window.
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Here’s the first video featuring Tiling. Drop any further questions here or in the comments of the video itself. GO MASSIVE!!! - Giant Art with CNC Router - YouTube

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OK, did my first tiling job. But decided not to use the tiling feature. I didn’t have any vectors that needed to be chopped so I created a lower & upper tool path & posted them out separately.
My stock is a 30" round piece of 1/4" acrylic. So I couldn’t use a fence.
I cut some pieces of 1/8" acrylic the same width as the slots between my table slats & 2-way taped them to the backside of the workpiece. Now the piece is centered on the table & slides in that slot.
I marked the center point with an Xacto for a nice fine line, and when I moved the part I just reset the Y position.

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Couldn’t you make your own registration shapes on a separate layer (outside the cut area) and the put corresponding shapes on the design layer with the same geometry?

Thanks to Carbide and @KevBarn14 for the video!

I have an issue with the 1/8" offset that “no one but me will see…”… I’d like to introduce you to my clients!

This is a problem…particularly a problem if it’s on a repeating pattern that spans the gap, so that this shift is repeated over and over…it creates a visual shift that the eye DOES pick up on.
For example, this pattern:


Tiled into two components…if there is even the smallest registration shift results in:

Where the cumulative effect attracts the eye in the middle:
image

There is a need for NEAR-PEREFECT registration. I don’t know how to do it…but if there is something that CC Pro and CM can do to enable a positive indexing that works repeatedly, it would be awseome!

Machine holes for pins to register on in the corners?

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Yes…that is the idea…but my question is, will CC help?