Casmate users-Can I just drill holes?

[studio@renc.igs.net]

I am trying to get Casmate to just drill holes in a project. I want to use a 1/4" bit and drill 1/4" holes. When I do this and them try to make a toolpath, the hole on the screen just disapears.
Any suggestions?

Richard Bouchard
studio@renc.igs.net (mailto:studio@renc.igs.net)

[phil]

To cut holes 1/4 dia with a 1/4 bit in Casmate requires a bit of trickery.
1)Define your circle as being a hair over .250 dia, say .251, then Casmate will generate a small circular tool path for a .250 dia. bit. If you zoom in on the center of the hole you will see it. An alternative to this is to define your tool as being just slighlty less than .250 dia.
2)Once you get the toolpath out of casmate you can edit the file to remove the circular paths and just use one of the coordinates as your center. The center will be off by 1/2 the difference of the hole and bit size you used to defined the toolpath, which in most cases you can ignore.
2)If you have Scanvec Enroute then you can drill holes a lot easier as it has a drill function.
3)You could alternatively define a small square as your hole center point and use an appropriate small tool to get your toolpath.
4)Depending on what version of Casmate you are using will determine what the smallest tool you can define
5) GOOD LUCK!