Manual measuremetn entry

[texasinmi]

I am doing a series of cutouts. For these, I do not need the CW to do super accurate measurements of the board, just me telling it where the corner is and off it should go.

I do not see a way to make the CW do this, it always wants to measure the board for me.

Any ideas how to get around this?

texasinmi

[bergerud]

Two ways:

1. Make the board length just fit the cutout in Designer. Say Yes to stay under the rollers and then place on end (or corner).

2. Put the extra 3.5" on the board length (right end) in Designer. Say No to stay under rollers and then place on end (or corner).

With place on end (or corner if the width measures large), the machine will not measure the whole board. It will only go until it finds enough board for the project.

[Digitalwoodshop]

Boy do I have the perfect project to demonstrate that it is possible to get accurate placement of cuts....

Tonight I just started cutting 80 sheets of plastic with slots and cut tags. I needed to match the slots with corel draw artwork as I will be printng the plastic after it is all cut.

The way I did the proper placement of my cut lines is to first turn off perspective view of that is the correct spelling....

Then I turned on the Grid Lines.

I centered the Grid so it will be in the same place every time.

In Corel Draw I had lines that needed to line up with slots. I use the box drawing tool in corel draw to start from a right side reference point and measured and recorded the distance to each required slot. In Designer I went back to that common starting point and in my case it is the Right side of the Designer Screen as I use PLACE ON END so all the readings are based off that starting point.

I zoomed in on each area after setting the BOX Length so the LEFT end of the box showed me where the SLOT is to be located.... I did this for every hole...

So I used Boxes in Designer as a on board measuring stick....

This is part of that $10K project where I cut the handles on the machine in a over 60 hour week long carving adventure last week.

Now when it comes to Vector Cutting... On this plastic I am using a 1/16th end mill to cut the tags from the extra plastic on the end and the slots I use the standard 1/8th inch cutting bit. Now normally the machine will want to cut both in a 2 speed feed rate where the faster speed has caused me problems in the past... In the case of the cut out tags with the 1/16th end mill, I assign the 1/4 inch bull nose bit BUT load the 1/16th... and with the 1/8th, I tell the machine I am using the 3/8 end mill bit but load the 1/8th.... This LOCKS the feed rate at 1st gear and I get better chip control as the faster speed pushed the 1/16th bit faster than the bit could cut....

I am NOT using tabs.... I use strips of 1/4 inch double stick tape to hold the loose tags to the carrier board. I use the 1/8th inch bit to cut the slots as it chews up the center... my prototype used a 1/16th end mill and the centrer of the holes caused problem sticking to the rubber roller... and indented the plastic sheet. I had to babysit the machine with a air hose and blow off the centers... now it is dust...

Gloat over...

AL