I am about to start my “nth” attempt at cutting a laser scanned Eagle.
I am using Fusion 360. I completely changed the path generation and got the roughing down to 5 hrs versus WAY more.
This is a two sided cut. The stock is 2" thk, 16" in the X and 10" in the Y.
Since the Eagle head only sticks above the 1" level for a small area, I glued a smaller piece of MDF for the level from 1" to 2" thk.
I cut the bottom side first. I have blue tape and clamps holding down the stock.
I added the clamps to be sure holds, since the smaller block is on table surface.
The question is how to be sure that I do not hit the clamps.
I created blocks that represent the clamps and included them in the path generation to avoid.
I realized that does not guarantee I will miss the clamps when CM is a tool, then traversing to the path start point.
My solution is to make sure the spindle is starting at a point that has a direct line of sight to the first point in the path.
I will manually load the tool and make sure the tool change is not in the path, otherwise the spindle will go from the Bitsetter to the path start point and probably hit a clamp.
Or I could add a “preamble” of movement that runs the spindle around the project.
You could put a ‘fake’ operation with a position that is:
off the stock
clear to move to from the bitsetter
and gives a good line of travel to the stock.
For example, a shallow drill operation with the same tool as the following toolpath.
So the machine would go to the bitsetter, then go do the fake drill, then it should travel straight to the stock for the next operation, since it’s using the same tool.
For example, if the blue squares are clamps you want to avoid, then the circle is not a bad place for the fake operation - from there, it can travel directly to most of the stock.
Thank you. I was wondering about that.
A small set of drill points would control the path.
Update:
I opted for prepositioning the spindle to the (North) rapid location BEFORE I started the path.
That gave me a direct line to the path start point.
I would use a set of drill points if I could not find a simple path.
I probably would make a entrance and exit set of points.
I removed the tool bit ( extended Jenny ) and ran the path to confirm the movements before and after the path.
I did remove the right clamp when setting the Z height to the Top of stock.
The bottom of the Z axis was too close to the clamp for comfort.