Diagonal Lead-Ins and PartWizard

[scottgus]

I've had a PRTAlpha since Dec. 2006, and I'm learning all sorts of new things. On thing is that the CNC bit manufacturers recommend "easing" into the cut on a diagonal, instead of plunging straight down. PartWizard doesn't do that and I don't have the budget to get a program that does. I checked on the forum here, found a few ideas about manually writing in "lead-ins" as I've recently been told they're called. I wrote a program to do it automatically. And, as I've learned tons from this forum in the past few months, I want to give something, too.

I wrote this program to scan and "re-write" PartWizard part files to make the cut action of the file a spiral, instead of plunge-then-horizontal. I called it RampIn, then someone told me it should be LeadIn, but I haven't bothered to change it. I use it all the time, maybe you might like it, too. RampIn also automatically generates an "Onion Skin" file, if you want it to.

This is a Visual Basic script that uses the same program-execution system on the computer as do Web pages with enclosed programs (scripts). It runs fine under XP, and might run well under 98/ME, but I haven't tried. If antivirus software is on the computer, the program might get caught as "suspicious", but that is because it is opening the part file that is to be modified and writes new part files based on the original file. It is a text file and can be read (hopefully easily...) in Notepad (right-click and choose Edit).

There also is a readme explanation file, and a configuration program to set up common settings. If anyone likes it, let me know. If something is wrong, let me know. Hope it helps.


RampIn
\VIDEO\BackedUpData\Programs\RampIn\RampIn.zip (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/20164/__VIDEO_BackedUpData_Programs_RampIn_RampIn-19014.zip) (12.5 k)

[scottgus]

One more quick thing about the onion Skin files: The way RampIn finds shapes in a cut file is by looking for a J3 then an M3 at the same X,Y coordinates (the start), then it looks for an M3 then a J3 at the same X,Y coordinates (the end). A multiple-depth-cut "closed" shape (one that returns to its starting coordinates) has the entire cutout occur between the staring J3-M3, and the ending M3-J3, so that shape will get put in the Onion Skin file only one time. However, PartWizard does a J3-M3...M3-J3 sequence for each cut depth of an "open" (one that does not return to its starting coordinates) shape. So far, each pass on an open shape will be put into the Onion Skin file by RampIn, as each pass seems to be a separate open shape to the shape-recognition system. This means that you will see the Shopbot seem to cut out the Onion Skin for an open shape multiple times, once for each PartWizard-programmed plunge into that shape. Only the last pass on an open shape will really be at the depth necessary to remove the Onion Skin for that shape. A slight inefficiency, but one that I hope to conquer soon.