Cutting multiple parts from stacks of laminate

[rockytops]

We need to cut 15000 sample swatches of laminate. We've read Gerald D's explanation on cutting multiple pizza boards and understand the concept, makes complete sense.

In AutoCad, I started by drawing my first piece at the furtherest point on my sheet and arrayed the pieces towards 0,0. I then imported my .dxf file into Parts Wizard and created a toolpath for the cut and looked at it in 3D mode to view the jog line. My only problems is how do I tell SB where to start the cut for each piece and which piece to cut next. As I understand Gerald was using Vector to do this. Hope this makes sense.
Karen

[gerald_d]

Heck, you talk of me in the past tense - I am not dead yet!


Mail me the dxf and I'll see if I can help the Scottish out until you get better answers here.

[Scott Smith (Unregistered Guest)]

Try this:
Import your drawing.
Ungroup the drawing to the individual swatches.
Click on a swatch, the corners turn black with one green.
Right click on the corner you want to start in and select Start Point in the menu.
This will give you the individual start points for the swatches.

When you select the parts to profile hold down the shift key and select them in the order you want to cut them. And they do.

At the beginning and end of the file you will have to edit out the J3,0,0,0 lines.

Hope it works for you, Scott

[rockytops]

Thanks Scott, sounds like a plan. Much appreciated. Please explain the reason for editing out the J3,0,0,0 at the beginning and end of the file. Much appreciated.
Karen

[ckurak]

Karen,

The J3,0,0,0 command simply tells the BOT to return to the 0,0,0 position. Actually, what you will probably find in your files is something more like:
J3,0.000,0.000,1.000
where the 1.000 is the SAFE Z position that was set when you built the tool path.

Commenting out these J3 commands:
'J3,0.000,0.000,1.000
will keep the BOT from returning to the 0,0 location on your table.

If you are including many individual toolpaths, the many returns to the 0,0 position will consume a lot of time. I routinely build cutting files that have a number of toolpaths in them (e.g., area clears at different depths, drillings, and profiles). PartWizard will want to return to 0,0 after each one. To save cutting time, I comment out these commands. I believe that the v2 upgrade of PartWizard is supposed to eliminate these extra trips back to 0,0.

You may also choose to delete these lines, as Scott mentioned, but I prefer to simply use the apostrophe ' mark to comment them out just in case I made a mistake. Either way will work fine.

Good luck.

[Scott Smith (Unregistered Guest)]

Thanks for finishing my thought Charles, That’s exactly what I was getting at.
One nice thing I’ve found with the J3 command is that I can quickly find the start of new tool paths. I usually replace the J3 line with a note like (‘dado) or (‘cutout part). That way if I need to make a small adjustment to the part in the future I can do it in the SBP program.