[y0da900]

I've got a file that I drew in AutoCAD that I would like to v-carve on my router. I tried using the v-carve routine in BobCAD V26, but a large portion of the drawing is destroyed and the toolpath for some reason continues down to Z = -12.97" despite the bottom level being defined as -.125" in the v-carve wizard.

Every single shape in the drawing is a closed polyline in AutoCAD. I can hatch the area that I would like to get v-carved, and can also extrude the drawing and get solids, so I know there are no self intersecting curves and the shapes are "watertight". Strangely, the lower half of the drawing comes out as intended in the simulation, and the upper half is consumed.

This is what the drawing should look like (hatch generated in AutoCAD).



This is what is happening in the V-Carve simulation:








Does anybody have an ideas on what might be causing something like this to happen?

Thank you,

Jonathan

[jrmach]

can you upload a .zip of a .bbcd file

[jrmach]

I just did a V-Carve working off your picture,,,,works fine.Upload your file,,,Probably something simple to fix

[y0da900]

I haven't tried to do one using a vectorized picture - does that sometimes give better results than the original CAD files?

[jrmach]

I don't know what's up,but instead of wasting a bunch of time you can use the one I vectorized.

One thing to note,,when I vectorized my entity count is better than yours

[y0da900]

I appreciate the help.

I'm not surprised on the entity count, the drawing was done with a ton of short polyline and spline segments joined together. Vectorizing it will replace an approximated curve with 30 segments into a single curve. I wouldn't be surprised if I am overwhelming my system trying to use the (admittedly messy) original CAD file.

[ger21]

How are you jointing splines and polylines in AutoCAD?
Can you post the .dxf?

[y0da900]

Polyline editing can turn a spline into a polyline to join segments. It also significantly multiplies the number of entities doing so.

[jrmach]

I took your .dxf opened it,then saved it as a .bbcd....Opened that went to utilities/re-organize/clean-up,,,then I did an arc fit with a tolerance of .001.
The entity count improves significantly and no problem getting a v-carve tool path.

[y0da900]

I REALLY appreciate the help jrmach. I followed the steps you tried with the cleanup and arc fit of the original file, and it came out great. Found a few minor features that needed tweaking to come out like I intended, but the simulation looks great. Can't wait to finish the router build so I can run it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci8S...ature=youtu.be