This gadget takes a selection of circles and a choosen v-bit, engraving, ball end, or tapered ball end bit. It creates a drlling toolpath using the bit and selection the result of which is a conical or dish shaped depression to fill the circle.Bharris wrote: ↑Tue Feb 16, 2016 8:48 pm...Unfortunately, when I apply a VCarve toolpath to a selection of overlapping shapes, it creates a group of anomalous paths that ruin the cut (See attached). From what I understand, this is simply how VCarve path calculation works and is to be expected. Drill paths, on the other hand, do not suffer this problem....
The circles can come from a half-tone creation program such as the one for Windows written by https://jasondorie.com/page_cnc.html Jason Dorie. It also works well with StippleGen2 from https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2012/stipplegen2/ Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. A similar result can be obtained from the "V-Carve / Engraving Toolpath" in the Vectric software But that toolpath does not handle overlapping circles as mentioned above.
Note: because the Vectric gadget API seems to have no way of obtaining the side angle of an engraving or tapered ball nose bit you will need to enter that manually if you use one of those bits. Take note of the side angle when you select your bit and enter it in the field below the "Bit" button. If you are using a v-bit or ball end bit you can leave the field at 0.
The "Use Peck Drilling" has two choices: 'Peck' and 'Plunge'. Peck will use the bit's pass depth to peck down in steps. It will retract to the last cut depth rather than the top of the material to allow chips to clear. Plunge will step the bit down the full depth to be cut in one go.
The "Starting Depth" field will normally be left at 0. If you are stippling the bottom of a dish or box you can enter the depth of your pocket here. As with other toolpaths when cutting the job it is up to you to make sure that material had been removed.
If the diameter of a circle is greater than the diameter of the chosen bit it will not be included in the drilling toolpath. The depth of any cut will be limited to the material thickness between start depth and the bottom of the material.
- V-Carve/Engraving toolpath. Circles missing. Overlapping causes odd shapes to be cut.
- Stpple Dril gadget properly drills circles
This gadget works in Aspire and VCarve Pro versions 9 to 11. I have not tried it in Cut2D Pro but gadgets are claimed to work in that program.
I have not tried it in version 10.x but as underlying SDK entries have not changed between v9 and v11 it should work fine. I have also not tested it in versions less than v9 but I expect that it should work.
Because the forum software doesn't allow attachments with ".vgadget" extension the file is uploaded as "Stipple_Drill_v1_0.zip". Rename this to "Stipple_Drill_v1_0.vgadget" after downloading and before installing.
To install the gadget into Aspire/VCarve Pro choose on of the following methods:
- with Aspire/VCarve closed you can "double-click" on the .vgadget file in Windows Explorer to automatically load Aspire/VCarve and install the gadget.
- if you already have Aspire/VCarve open you can install the gadget by using the menu option: Gadgets > Install New Gadget...
Some changes that might be made for the gadget:
- remove manual side angle entry if API method is identified
- user input toolpath name
- copying invalid circles to a layer for further processing
To use this gadget just follow these simple steps:
- Select the circle vectors for the gadget to create a drilling-style toolpath
- Go to "Gadgets" on the toolbar and select the "Stipple Drill" Gadget
- Choose your bit (or use the last chosen one); set side angle if needed; choose peck or plunge; set optional start depth
- Cick OK to create toolpath; click Cancel to exit without creating
- When the gadget is finished a "Stipple Drill" toolpath will be created
