Rookie: just want to cut out a profile

[nboyce]

Okay feel free to forward me to any other posts about this, but I couldn't find any.

I just want to export a simple STL from Solidworks to Cut3D, and have it cut out a simple profile, without unnecessarily routing out huge sections.

Basically as a simplified example, imagine I have a square piece of plywood on the router, and I just want to cut out a big, round disc out of it. I just want the router to follow a circular shape, and cut out the single 1/8" kerf. I know you can do that in VCarve, but I'm looking for a workflow outside of VCarve. When I do it in Cut3D, it won't just cut out the circle as a profile, it cuts out by routing all aaaall of the un-wanted plywood.

So, I want to end up with a circle, and a square with a hole in the middle. I don't want a circle, and a huge pile of sawdust that used to be the rest of the wood.

Is that possible?

(I have a classroom full of high schoolers savvy in Solidworks, so I'm trying to stay in the Solidworks>export workflow)

[rscrawford]

Not sure how to do a circle profile cut in cut3D, but its very easy to just write the g-code for that.

This g-code will cut an 8" diameter circle in two passes through .25" material with Z0 set to the top of the material. You just need to set the feed speeds, spindle speeds, etc first. To cut deeper, just repeat the last two lines, with a deeper Z depth.

G00 X0 Y4.0625 Z2 (Travels at rapid speed to beginning of cut, 2" above table
G00 Z-0.125 (lowers .125" into material
G02 X0 Y4.0625 I0 J4.0625 (cuts a full circle, ending at the start point X0 Y4.0625)
G02 Z-0.25 (lowers to .25" into material)
G02 X0 Y4.0625 I0 J4.0625 (cuts a full circle, ending at the start point X0 Y4.0625)
etc

[nboyce]

Ah, appreciate the g-code, but the circle was more of an analogy. So what if the "circle" is some complicated shape, or had interior cuts, etc.

There's the "Cut Out Path" option, but that's no quite getting it for me. *See attached* for another example of random shape. I don't want it to raster-route the entire negative space, I just want it to profile-cut those parts away.

"Cut 3D" does not make for very good keyword searches, given how many unrelated hits have those words in them.

[Xxray]

I'm not understand your question ,,, Sounds like you are describing a pocket cut more than a profile.
A pocket will indeed leave you with a pile of sawdust and take forever, a profile just cuts on the line, regardless of shape/size.

[nboyce]

Yes but I'm trying to avoid the POCKET function, and just cut it out as a profile. Is that possible in Cut3D?

(I just realized this is accidentally in the "gallery" section of the forum, sorry)

[Xxray]

Oh, Ok.
I own cut 3d but don't currently have it installed and haven't used it in quite some time, my bad.

[weber765]

I am not sure this will give you what you desire but it may. I just tried the demo version and this is what I did. I used the rooster and did the outside profile cut out by generating all tool paths. Then I went back and turned off roughing and finishing tool paths and previewed cut out only. I then saved the tool path cut out only and previewed with Mach3.
You will note that it also cut out material between roosters legs and tail feathers but this process would work for any shapes like a circle that did not have internal cutouts. If you did have cutouts like in the roosters legs and tails and did not want the internal cutouts you could edit your g code and remove those lines. By running preview in Mach3 you could watch the screen and see what lines of g code you need to remove. I used notepad to view and edit gcode.
I hope this all made sense to you.

Glenn