Easy MDF Cabinet Door Maker

[jimandi5000]

Wow Jim, your work is great.

Haven't been in for a while, but this thing evolved really fast.

@Sharkcutup, i see that in the picture above you have generated a Kitchen Sink Cabinet with the Interior as a Shaker style, where the Inner edge and the Raised Panel edge are sharp corners. How did you do it with the Gadget?

I'm asking because i've made some test and realized, if you want to have it that way, you'll be forced to cut the Inner edge as an Inside cut, Inside the Vector, not on the line.

How did you do it?

Benjamin

Hi Benjamin,

Good to hear from you. Can you post some pictures of your test parts so I can clearly understand the issue?

[BenjaminwithCNC]

Sure can. It was just a question out of curiosity. I think the sharp corner effect is the most used Door Front style i know of.

There are some pictures i took, i hope it is understandable.

Here is a picture of the Shaker now as it is. The Inner Edge of the carving is rounded up in the corners:

While a Shaker Style with sharp corners should look like this:

This can only be done if the (you call it 'Door Inside Edge') is not drawn to be ON the line but Inside. As Vectric doesn't allow you to make a sharp corner if you draw ON the Line. (Which is clearly impossible. in which direction should the Vcarve do the corner, if you go ON the line.)
Here a picture of what you cannot Tick:

Here a picture of what it looks like if you draw the Vector to be Inside the line, the Settings are tick-able:

But... if i simply do this, then we'll have a problem with the 'Panel Pocket'. As the Vector for the 'Inside Edge' is now on the inside of the Vector, the Vector for the Pocket stayed still.

Here a picture of what i mean:

To fix this, the Vector for the Outer side should be moved towards the interior and this Offset would have to be the depth of cut for the 'Inside Edge'. Offset Distance = Cut Depth of Inner Edge. Or in this Gadgets Case it would be the 'B- Radius' Value.

But i think this would be too much work. As you'd have to change a lot of the Code to make another Tickable option for sharp Corners.

I think more important than this is that the Pocket Bit uses Imperial sizes. And if i change the bit it creates the Pocket correct, but the 2nd Vector that will be drawn, will have to have the Pocket Bit again changed. As it changes back to imperial.

The Gadget as is, is already a great help and i see has been downloaded already a couple of times.

Thank you for it Jim.

Benjamin

[jimandi5000]

Sure can. It was just a question out of curiosity. I think the sharp corner effect is the most used Door Front style i know of.

There are some pictures i took, i hope it is understandable.

Here is a picture of the Shaker now as it is. The Inner Edge of the carving is rounded up in the corners:

Simple Shaker Style.jpg

While a Shaker Style with sharp corners should look like this:

Inside sharp Corner.jpg

This can only be done if the (you call it 'Door Inside Edge') is not drawn to be ON the line but Inside. As Vectric doesn't allow you to make a sharp corner if you draw ON the Line. (Which is clearly impossible. in which direction should the Vcarve do the corner, if you go ON the line.)
Here a picture of what you cannot Tick:
Cannot tick because ON line.jpg


Here a picture of what it looks like if you draw the Vector to be Inside the line, the Settings are tick-able:
INside can tick.jpg

But... if i simply do this, then we'll have a problem with the 'Panel Pocket'. As the Vector for the 'Inside Edge' is now on the inside of the Vector, the Vector for the Pocket stayed still.

Here a picture of what i mean:
Inside, Vector needs to be changed.jpg

To fix this, the Vector for the Outer side should be moved towards the interior and this Offset would have to be the depth of cut for the 'Inside Edge'. Offset Distance = Cut Depth of Inner Edge. Or in this Gadgets Case it would be the 'B- Radius' Value.
The Offset value.jpg

But i think this would be too much work. As you'd have to change a lot of the Code to make another Tickable option for sharp Corners.

I think more important than this is that the Pocket Bit uses Imperial sizes. And if i change the bit it creates the Pocket correct, but the 2nd Vector that will be drawn, will have to have the Pocket Bit again changed. As it changes back to imperial.

The Gadget as is, is already a great help and i see has been downloaded already a couple of times.

Thank you for it Jim.

Benjamin

Hello Benjamin,

Thank you very much for your message. I do understand where you're coming from because of the complexity of milling strategies and some of the limitations that are within the SDK at this time. I had planned to address the sharp corner using the Molding sweep function within the toolpath toolbox. This functionality would allow us to create very sharp inside corners but unfortunately, it has not been made available in the SDK. (I have sent a request to the dev team)

After looking over my design notes, the Door Inside Edge toolpath is only the top edge treatment toolpath (if you wanted to have a round-over or a chamfer edge) and I had tackled this with using a type of round-over/chamfer bit (see image below) these types bits would address the sharp corner issue under the current limitations.

The inside corners are actually addressed with the Door Panel Pocket toolpath. I could add a optional function to place a very small pocket in each of the panel corner. I would create an associated toolpath to use a small 1/16" or 1.5 mm bit to clear and clean up the corners?
Let me know your thoughts.

I always welcome your feedback and insight.

[BenjaminwithCNC]

@Jimandi, i see your point. I think right now, optionally, making the outer pocket vector smaller by the depth of cut. And to manually change the 'Door Inside Edge' to Inside.

But honestly, i suggest leaving it as is, is the best choice. There are other more important matters than this.

It's not hard to draw another Vector Offseted from the already drawn one and choosing this one as the outer pocket Vector for the already created toolpath.

I think the problem with the pocket Bit always changing from 8mm to 8 inches upon Gadget Start up, is more addressable.


Thank you again for the great Gadget

Benjamin

[jimandi5000]

I think the problem with the pocket Bit always changing from 8mm to 8 inches upon Gadget Start up, is more addressable.

@Benjamin, I am not sure I understand the issue? What do you mean "8mm to 8 inches"??

[BenjaminwithCNC]

@jimandi

If i open the Gadget and select the Door Panel Pocket Bit in the Bit selection page to be a 8mm End mill, and press build and then generate the Toolpaths, the Drawing is fine and the Toolpaths are fine too. If i again enter the Gadget and press build and then Toolpath, i get an error message, showing me that the Panel Pocket Bit is not fitting between the Vectors. If i open up the Panel Pocket Toolpath and check the Tool settings, i see that instead of the chosen 8mm End mill, i have an 8 inch Endmill, even though it is called an 8 mm Endmill

Here a short Video of these 2 Parts. The first is what it should do, the second is in inches.

Also i realized that i didn't choose any Clearing Tool and it generated a Toolpath nevertheless.



Benjamin

[adze_cnc]

In the video on the 2nd time you create a door you do not reselect the pocket clearing bit and it comes in as 8 inches. What happens if on the 2nd door you do reselect the 8mm bit?

Jim: I suspect that, for whatever reason, the tool3 inMM setting is not properly writing to the registry. So, on the 2nd run through when it is read from the registry tool3’s iMM is set to the default false (i.e. inches).

[jimandi5000]

Okay,

I am looking at the code and should have a new version this weekend.

[jimandi5000]

Hello All,

What has been fixed:
1. The issue with milling units stay on Inches

Version 11.7



The Easy Install Steps:

1. Download the gadget EasyMDFDoorMaker.zip that is attached to this post.
2. Rename it from EasyMDFDoorMaker.zip to EasyMDFDoorMaker.vgadget
3. In Vectric Pro or Aspire click on Gadgets -> Install Gadget and navigate to where you downloaded the file to, select it and click Ok.

If successful, a pop up saying the gadget was installed and you should see EasyMDFDoorMaker is now in the Gadgets menu.


Next Steps:
Add function to have multi panels (Enter the number of panels per rows and columns)

Please leave me some feedback . I hope you find it useful.

[BenjaminwithCNC]

@ adze, this was exactly what happened.

Thank you Jim for your hard work.

It should work now

Benjamin

[jimandi5000]

Hello All,

I have been busy updating the Easy Door Maker Gadget.

What is New:
• Multi-panel doors
• Oval door panel
• Integrated help - at this time it's pretty lean on content but I think it has a good structure
• Error logging
• Error log viewer and able to see the last 10 Logs
• Removed most of the pop-up error messages
• Added an option on the edge milling toolpath to be "On" or "Inside" the line
• And there are too many changes for me to remember them all.


Version 11.9

The Easy Install Steps:

1. Download the gadget EasyMDFDoorMaker.zip that is attached to this post.
2. Rename it from EasyMDFDoorMaker.zip to EasyMDFDoorMaker.vgadget
3. In Vectric Pro, Aspire, or Cut2D PRo click on Gadgets -> Install Gadget and navigate to where you downloaded the file to, select it and click Ok.

If successful, a pop up saying the gadget was installed and you should see EasyMDFDoorMaker is now in the Gadgets menu.

Please leave me some feedback . I hope you find it useful.

[sharkcutup]

Those of you who have downloaded (see 35 downloads as of this post) the Easy MDF Cabinet Door Make Gadget - it would definitely be helpful/beneficial if you were to provide feedback on the gadget. It is your feedback that helps in succeeding with a useful gadget!!!

Did you try the gadget?
Did you run into any issues when you ran the gadget?
Are there any features within the gadget that need correcting/adjusting?

Please help us to provide you with a successful and useful gadget!!!

Thank you,
Sharkcutup

[jonathanmahnken]

I have used it to make some shaker style fronts. Im new to making mdf doors, and I do plan on other styles in the future. It would be nice to be able to enter an entire list of doors and have that lay out onto a sheet with specified spacing. Maybe it does and I just dont know how to use it...

[adze_cnc]

A couple things to look at. I'll separate them into two posts.

Fresh gadget install choose default settings menu. Choose Make CSV Seed File
 

 
Gives this error (note: c:\temp exists and does not need administrator privileges to access)
 

[adze_cnc]

Existing list of selected tools:
 

 
Change scribe bit type to "Ball Nose" from "V-Bit":
 

 
Gives error message (note: changing other tool types on this screen will give similar message just different ToolNameLabels)
 

 
Bit is still there which is expected as I need to change it.
  

 
And selection does bring up ball nose bits
 

 
While we're at it on the "Default Settings" pop-up the following changes could be made:

• "Inner Frame Line" instead of "Inter..."
• Sometimes "fluting" is used and sometimes "flute". Might be best to standardize on one
• "Inside Edge Milling". It's unclear as to what this actually does. What inside edge?