Newbie looking for area clearance help

[MRImaker]

I am trying to start using a shopbot and PartWizard v3.0 when an employee left the company. The problem I am having has to be a very simple one to do, but I've spent half the morning and can't seem to get it to work.

This is simplified, but the problem I'm trying to solve is similar to this scenario:

Imagine my part is to be a 100mmx100mmx10mm thick. I draw a line to bisect the square into two 100x50mm halves. I can use the 2d profiling function to cut out the square, but I want half of that square (one of those 100x50mm pieces) to be 2mm thinner than the other half.

When I use the area clearance function I can't seem to figure out how to get it to clear out the area bounded by the mid-line I've drawn and the remaining half of the original square I drew. Does that make any sense?

Thanks for any ideas, I know this should be very easy to do.

[araugh]

I am still new to this, but the quick and easy way i know is to draw a rectangle that coincides with the area you want to clear and use a pocketing toolpath.

[myxpykalix]

I'm not clear on what you want to do based on the description but if you could post a screenshot that might help the confusion:confused:

[beacon14]

There are as many ways to do this as there are ShopBot/PartWorks owners. Here are a couple of options:

Draw another rectangle that only bounds one half of the workpiece, and assign a Pocketing toolpath to just that rectangle. (What Adam suggested)

Use the Trim tool to remove the part of the original square that lies beyond the bisecting line. Really just another way to end up with the same result. Make sure you have "Rejoin trimmed sections automatically when form is closed" checked, so you end up with a closed shape that can be pocketed.

Either way you use a Pocketing toolpath to create the "area clearance" you need.

[MRImaker]

Thanks for the offer of help.

The attached .JPG is a semi-circle part to be joined with another identical part around a cylinder to form a ring that can be bolted together through the holes at the 0 and 180 degree points.

I drew this in Turbocad and saved it as a .dxf file, and can import that easily into PartWizard, but I need to thin the material around the holes to 1/2 thickness so it will fit properly with the second part.

I can't figure out how to tell the machine to area clear the 2 spaces that the holes are in. Any ideas?

[MRImaker]

Replacing that jpg with something you can actually see the lines. Thanks again.

[steve_g]

Here's the pocket boundary you'll create (in blue) Its bigger than the actual pocket by at least 1/2 the diameter of the bit you are using...

SG

P.S.the blue dosen't show well...

P.P.S. you can only pocket closed vectors and that's one of the reasons you create a separate boundary vector... another reason is your bit is round and will not fit in the area you have defined without overcutting.

[MRImaker]

Thanks SG, that's exactly what I did and it seemed to work. Much appreciated!