Routing a simple groove

[Phillycyberjoe]

Tony et al,
Attached is a CRV file that I could use a little help with. In the middle of this simple drawing (that guitar builders will recognize) is where I need to route a groove. The only way that I can make it happen in VCP is to make a very narrow rectangle. I want to cut this with a 1/4" bit and sizing the width of a rectangle free hand to exact dimenstions is pretty hard. Right now it's .247 which is very close, but still enough for the software to complain that it can't cut inside the line. Cutting ON the line will work, but I would like to know how you would do this. Ideally, I would like to just draw a straight line and tell VCP to cut on the line and that would be it, but then that presents an open vector.

Oh....and speaking of open vectors, I could sure use some pointers on how best to find and fix these. I admit that I'm a newb, but finding and closing all the open vectors in this very simple drawing took me more time than I care to admit.

Thanks a bunch,
Joe

[C.Michael]

Just use a smaller diameter bit or just trick the program and tell it that it is a .247 diameter bit..just input .247 for the size of the bit under the specs of the bit..

After looking at the crv,I see that you did that already..also with the bit being sized at the .240 that you put in you will get a larger than .250 slot that you are looking for..because I think that Vcp will move the bit over that much to compensate for the size difference,resulting in a larger slot..Just use a smaller bit..1/8th size..would not that work??

[Tony Mac]

Hi Joe,

You should be able to size the rectangle exactly by using Scale selected Vectors
this is the icon under the Node Editing cursor on the Edit Vectors area.

With the rectangle selected click on this option and you will see the exact size of
the rectangle shown. Using Move Selected Vectors you can also position the
rectangle precisely, relative to a corner or the middle point.

The Height of the rectangle is 0.2466" at the moment so there isn't sufficient
room for the 0.250" cutter to fit inside this vector.

You can certainly draw a line and use the toolpath strategy - Profile = On
and the cutter will simply run along the open vector.

****************************************************************

Closing Open vectors should be very quick and easy assuming the points on
the start and end of vectors are reasonably close together.

Select all the vectors
Open the Join Open Vectors tool
Enter a tolerance and the number of remaining Open vectors is displayed.

This approach should fix most open vectors.

There are also tools for manually Joining pairs of vectors and these are
available next to the Join tool.

I hope this helps,

Tony

[AngelicDiablo]

Joe, maybe this will work for you. -AD

[Phillycyberjoe]

Well, I'm feeling a bit silly now. It appears as though all of those suggestions will work....and they seem pretty easy. I guess everything is, when you know what you're doing. I really appreciate the help, but I still have one more question.

AD......why did your solution work and not show up as on open vector? It just appears to be a simple line and I tried that with no luck.

Thanks again guys,
Joe

[1BigPig]

Everybody else gave you good suggestions, but I was able to draw a single line (open vector) using the "Draw Polyline" tool and then machine it via the "2D Profile Toolpath" with the Machine _ON_ Vectors. It worked for me.

Bruce