Designer 2.0

[bergerud]

The problem is the Floor Feather. In the 2.002, turn off the Floor Feather in the check box. If you turn it off for both the front and back, the times will be the same.

[peep]

What is the floor feather, and why would i not want to use it if it's in the design.

[bergerud]

There is a bit of a story about floor feather. In 1.186 a feature was added which helped clean up the edges of poor bitmaps. Rough edges of poor bitmaps caused rough feathers around the patterns. It was decided to automatically floor the edges of patterns. It was thought that for most users this would be a good feature. Unfortunately it reeked havoc with more complicated patterns which do not have a horizontal boundary. It forced the boundary to be horizontal by flooring it. Terry would have something to say on this. Anyway, it was decided in 2.002 to include a check box to turn it off for the more complicated patterns.

The space ship pattern you have does not need the floor feather. Further, there seems to be something else funny going on. The floor feather in 1.187 (which could not be turned off) does not do the same thing to your ship as the 2.002 floor feather. If you look closely at the pattern, you will see that the floor feather is causing carve throughs all over the ship. Hull breaches!! A closer look at the pattern might show that there are pixels in the inside of the pattern with the same depth as the edges. I think there is a bug here. I am going to use your file and report this as an insect of interest.

Edit: I believe this really is a bug to do with floor feather and 2.002.

[peep]

I decided to carve this slice in 1.187 to simply save time. Its been running since yesterday. Did I do wrong? Will I have to redo it in 2.02? Will mixing and matching work between the programs?
Advise please. The term Hull breaches is scary!

[bergerud]

If you uncheck Floor Feather in 2.002 all will be well. It is a small check box beside the conform check box under the button bars. Uncheck it for both sides and the carve as well as the carve time will be the same as it is in 1.187.

[peep]

So the first carve I did starting with the largest piece (the one I showed you) should be fine in 1.187 then. The rest I will do in 2.02 as long as they match. I am using Birds-eye Grenadilla red. Very rare type of Grenadilla so do not want to wast wood. I am only able to lift 3 boards.

[bergerud]

1.187 or 2.002 with floor feather off should be the same.

I noticed that bit optimization was not set to best. Not to worry if you have already started the carving, but if not, I would set it to best. The layer edges will line up better.

Another thing I noticed is that there are little pieces which will fall out during the carve of the second side. If the board is not on a sled, these pieces could jam and damage the x gears.

[peep]

Very good point. the board is 14.5" x 39" so a sled is not possible. The second side is on going (last 2 hours). Hope it makes it. Will have to use more masking tape in the future.

[TerryT]

Terry would have something to say on this.
Edit: I believe this really is a bug to do with floor feather and 2.002.

Actually I already said pretty much everything. It fell on deaf ears. Too expensive to fix this "IMPROVEMENT" I guess. I just wonder how many other 3d cnc software packages have such an obvious patch to try and make them work right.

[gregsolano]

you can use a simple sled of just a 1/2 inch mdf board that is 14.5 inches wide and 40 inches in length. The two boards would just sandwich together with either double stick carpet tape or screws which are carefully placed. It will take you a few extra minutes to flip the board and you want your positioning to be accurate for the second side carving but you will have much more accurate carves and the parts will usually line up better and you wont have parts falling off into the belts. I would highly recommend it. Still use masking tape on the mdf sled. You also need rollers on the outfeed and infeed for boards that large.