Hey y'all.
Welcome to part seven of my series on the Vectric software titles...
...for the absolute beginner.
Before we get started I'd like to say that I am in no way endorsed...
...nor sponsored by Vectric Ltd., nor any other company.
I'm doing this series to help the beginner who has never done anything like this before...
...get into the CAD/CAM software...
...learn a few of the tools, and create and finish...
...a project within the Vectric software.
In this episode I'm going to introduce you to a new tool...
...and we're going to revisit a project...
...that we did in a previous episode.
And I'm going to show you a new feature that was incorporated into...
...Cut2D, VCarve, and Aspire Version 9.0
Once again, I'm using VCarve Pro Version 9.015...
...and I will refer to VCarve in this video because that's the software I'm using.
Just please know that when I say VCarve, I also mean Cut2D and Aspire.
So let's go ahead and get started.
We're gonna revisit the project we did previously.
We're gonna get into that little clock face that we made, and I'm going to do a little bit of editing.
So, we'll go over here to open an existing file...
...give that a click...
...and we'll navigate over here to the proper folder, which I already have set up here.
I'll select the project, click Open...
...and there's our clock face that we did.
Now in thinking about a project I wanted to do to demonstrate these tools...
I made a few mental changes to this project.
If you recall, this was to be made on a piece of maple plywood...
...what I was going to do was cut all of these holes...
...and then use a contrasting wood like an oak dowel...
...for the smaller holes here...
...and then a walnut dowel to fill these holes here.
Well, it suddenly struck me that I was limiting myself, and I needed to do a little bit of changing up.
So what I'd like to do now is...
...instead of using these 3/8 inch holes...
...I want to make some 3/4 inch holes...
...fill them with walnut dowel...
...then drill a hole in that and use the 3/8 inch oak dowel.
So what I'm going to do is create a 3/4 inch circle around each of these 3/8 inch circles.
Now I could very easily just go over here and draw a 3/4 inch circle...
...and plop it down around each of these 3/8 circles.
But in order to demonstrate the new tool, I'm going to show you something else.
Now first things first before we get started on that...
If you recall in the other video, when I got over into my Toolpaths tab...
...I got into Material Setup I changed my XY datum from the center of the material...
...to the bottom left corner.
Because I'm gonna get back into layout...
...I want to change that again. I want to go back to my XY datum being in the center.
So I'll come over here to Job Setup...
...click that icon...
...and just change my XY datum back to the center...
...and click OK.
Now when I do that, I get this warning here...
...that changing these settings means that all of my toolpaths must be recalculated...
...to ensure correct results, would I like to recalculate now?
I'm gonna go ahead and click yes, and it's gonna automatically recalculate all of my toolpaths...
...even though I'm going to be changing that and recalculating them again.
I'm doing this just to show you how this would work.
So I'll go ahead and click yes...
...it's giving me the warning that my end mill will cut through the material...
...yes I know that...
...all of the toolpaths have been recalculated.
And we see those toolpaths Illustrated.
I want to get rid of those toolpaths here so I'm not looking at them...
...while I'm adjusting my pattern. I'll come over here to Toolpaths...
...and just uncheck that box...
...click off over here...
...and I'm ready to get to work on my project.
Just know that if you come over here into Job Setup...
...or you go back over here into Material Setup...
...after you've calculated toolpaths...
...you will need to recalculate those toolpaths because everything has changed...
...from the way it was when these toolpaths were first created.
Now let's get into the modifications I want to make to this project.
As I said before, I want to put a 3/4 inch circle around each one of these 3/8 inch circles.
So I'll select one and... let me zoom in a little bit...
We see here that it's selected in a solid pink line.
If we look over here at this one, it's the same thing.
Same with this one, and the same with the six.
That's because we had grouped these circles together.
So in order to do what I need to do, or to modify them at all...
...I need to ungroup them so that I'm working with one single circle at a time.
The way I'll do that is, with the group selected...
...I'll come over here under Edit Objects...
...to this icon right here.
Ungroup Objects Back Onto Their Original Layers.
I'm going to use the icon, however there's another way of doing this...
...and that is to select the group...
...right-click...
...come down here to Ungroup Objects...
...and select Ungroup back onto the original object layers.
Both of these methods do exactly the same thing.
It's your choice as to which method you want to use.
When I clicked off over here, I deselect it. I'll go ahead and reselect.
Ungroup...
...and now they're all selected as the pink dashes.
So I can click off, and I can select one circle at a time.
Let's zoom in here a little bit
Right now the size of this circle is 3/8 of an inch.
I want to create a circle around it that's a total of 3/4 of an inch.
I know 3/8 is half of 3/4.
I need the new circle to be 3/8 larger all the way around....
...but if I go in and use 3/8 as a measurement, it's gonna cause some problems.
Let me demonstrate what I'm talking about because I know I've already lost a few people.
I'm gonna select my object...
...come over here under Offset and Layout...
...and select this first icon right here - Offset Selected Vectors.
I'll click on that icon...
...and we get the Offset Vectors form.
Starting from the top, I have three choices.
I can offset this object outwards...
...which is what I want to do.
I can offset it inwards, towards the center...
...or I can offset both at the same time.
What I'm going to do is go outwards...
...to get my 3/4 inch circle.
This circle is 3/8 of an inch in diameter.
When I offset this vector, it's going to offset from the outside perimeter.
It's not going to offset from the center of this circle.
It's going to take that measurement from here.
So what I was trying to say earlier was...
I know that 3/8 of an inch is half of 3/4.
If I were to offset this 3/8...
...it would offset 3/8 of an inch out from this outside perimeter...
...here as well as here.
So it would make it way too big - way bigger than I want it to be.
So I want to take my 3/8 measurement and divide that in half again...
...which would be 3/16.
So I'll offset 3/16 from this edge outwards.
So we're going outwards...
...and I don't remember the decimal equivalent of 3/16 of an inch...
...so I'll type in 3 / 1 6...
...and then tap the = key on my keyboard...
...and there's my decimal equivalent to 3/16 of an inch.
Now we have three check boxes down here.
One is Create Sharp Offset Corners.
Well, there are no corners on a circle, so I don't need to worry about that.
A check mark here next to Delete Original would delete this circle while it adds the new circle.
I don't want to do that. I want both of them, so I'll leave this unchecked.
And this Select New box - if I put a check mark here...
...instead of this circle being selected, the new circle will be selected.
That doesn't really matter.
In this case it's not important.
But I'm gonna leave it blank.
Then I'll just click the Offset button...
...and now I have a new circle, offset 3/16 of an inch out from here to here...
...from here to here... from here to here... all the way around.
I'll go ahead and close this form.
We can confirm the size by selecting the inside circle...
...come over here under Transform Objects...
...and click Set Selected Object Size.
When I click that icon...
...it selects the circle and shows me that my width in X is 0.375 or 3/8 of an inch...
...and my height in Y is 3/8 of an inch.
So that has not changed.
I'll click off over here and select the outer circle...
...and I have 3/4 of an inch wide in X...
...and high in Y.
I've got my 3/4 inch circle.
Hopefully that wasn't too confusing.
I'll go through it again just to show you what I'm talking about.
I'll go over here select this circle...
...come back over here to Offset...
...VCarve remembers all the settings that I last used in this form.
I want to go outwards... 3/16 of an inch... all my check boxes are unchecked... and I'll click Offset.
I do not have to close that form to do the next circle.
I'll just select it...
...click Offset.
Select the next one. Click Offset.
Then I can close this form...
...and I now have a new modified design.
I can come along here and calculate a toolpath to cut all four of these outside circles...
...fill them with a piece of walnut dowel...
...then when that's dry, I can cut these inside circles...
...and fill them with an oak dowel to match the rest of these.
That's one way of using the offset tool
Another way of using it would be if I decided that...
...for instance, this rectangle.
If I check on the size over here, it's 12 inches by 12 inches.
If I just wanted to change the size of this, the easiest way to do it is...
just change my measurement here to, let's say, 12 1/4 inches by 12 1/4 inches...
...hit apply and then close it.
But if I don't want to make that change permanent...
...what I can do is I can offset this rectangle...
...and calculate a separate toolpath for it so that I have a choice...
...of which size I want to cut.
So I'll go over here, I've already selected my rectangle...
...I want to offset this outwards and I want to offset it inwards.
I want to offset both directions by 1/8 of an inch.
So I'll change this to 0.125...
...and click Offset.
Now you see, I did not select Create Sharp Offset Corners...
...so I have a rounded corner here.
I do have a square corner on the inside, but I have a rounded corner here.
So I'll hold down CTRL, tap the Z button to undo that last change.
I'll select Create Sharp Offset Corners...
...click Offset...
...and there we go.
Now I can close this, click off...
...and I now have three separate sizes of clock that I can cut out...
...depending upon the material I happen to have on hand.
So I would do three separate Profile toolpaths...
...and use them, depending upon which profile I wanted to cut at that particular time.
Right now is the time that I would want to save this...
...but I don't want to overwrite my original demo clock file.
I want to make this a separate file.
I could come up here to file, click Save As, and name it something else...
...but in version 9.0...
Vectric introduced the Increment and Save option.
What the Increment and Save option does is it will take this title, Demo Clock...
...and it will add an underscore and a number to that title...
...then save it in the same folder...
...that this original file is located in.
So all I have to do is click Increment and Save...
...and you'll see our title has changed to Demo Clock_1.
I didn't type that in.
If we come down here to the folder where these files are stored...
...there's Demo Clock and Demo Clock_1.
So it automatically generated that title and then saved this file in the folder.
So, if I wanted to make another modification...
If I select and delete that one, then select and delete this one...
Then maybe I don't want to use these circles. I want to v-carve some text.
So I'll go ahead and delete these...
Then I'll come up here to the Draw Text icon, under Create Vectors...
...click on that. And it takes a second, it needs to load its font list.
This is a nice font here I'm going to use it.
I'll just type the number 12...
...my text height is 1 inch...
...text alignment to the center, and I'm going to anchor that text on my X zero, Y zero, right in the middle.
I'll click Apply, and there I have my text.
I'll go ahead and click it once again and drag it up.
Now if you notice, as I'm dragging my text...
...if you look, you'll see how it kind of snaps to the center...
...and VCarve draws a center line on my X zero line.
That lets me know that I'm lined up on the center of my material...
...then I can release, and it places that number 12.
So a little guideline popped up there in the center to help me place that where I wanted it.
Now we'll go over here to Text...
...and we'll do the same thing for 3, 6, and 9.
I'm not going to change any of these settings here. We'll click Apply...
... and close...
I'll select that again...
...drag it over here and you see...
...how it does the same thing. It gives me a little guideline there...
...to where I can drag this over, and place it right there...
...but I know it's centered on the center of my material.
Click off to deselect...
...come back over here...
...type the number 6...
...none of these have changed...
Apply.
Close.
Select again...
...and drag that straight down you see that dotted guideline comes back.
I'm just guessing on my placement right now. As far as how far away from the edge that number is going.
But that looks okay. Sometimes you don't need exact measurements.
If it looks good to you, it's good enough.
Then I'll come back over here...
...and without changing anything, type in 9...
Apply... close...
...click it again to select it and move it over here...
...to about so...
...and that looks good to me.
I've got what looks like even spacing here, and here, and here...
So there's another version of this same clock.
With everything placed, I can now come up to...
...File...
Increment and Save...
...we're now working on Demo Clock_2.
I come down here to the folder...
...and we now have Demo Clock_2.
So it has saved each and every step along the way...
...and it's named it automatically for me.
I don't have to keep coming up with new names.
This Increment and Save feature comes in real handy...
...when you're working on a complex pattern in here...
...and you have made a couple of modifications to it...
...but you're not real sure if you want to keep those modifications.
You click Increment and Save it will save a new copy of the file...
...and you can work continue to work on it without losing the previous edition of the file.
It's just one of those little features that's built in to the VCarve software, Cut2D, and Aspire...
...that'll help your workflow go a heck of a lot easier.
Now I'm ready to calculate toolpaths, go outside, and cut this file.
I'm going to go ahead and end this video right here.
If you got anything at all out of this video I do hope you'll give me a thumbs up.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns...
...feel free to leave me a comment in the comment section.
If you'd rather not leave a public comment and you want to send me a private message...
...the easiest way to do that is to come over here to my website...
marklindsaycnc.com
...then come over here under the banner photo and click the Contact Us link.
That'll take you over to a page where you can leave me any comment you wish.
I do see and I do read every message I get through the Contact Us page...
...and I try to answer every single one of them.
marklindsaycnc.com is sponsored by Harneal Media
They are the web design company that specializes in...
...web design and web hosting for makers and the maker community.
I'll also pat myself on the back just a little...
...by saying that I'm a proud member of the Makers Media Network.
I'd also like to point out that while you're over here on marklindsaycnc.com...
...if you come up here to the shop you will find some CNC file downloads.
These two files were featured in a previous video.
We had the 8-ball DXF file, and we had the 8-inch Corner Clamp DXF file.
Both of those files are available for free through my website.
So if you'd like to download these DXF files and import them into VCarve, they are absolutely free.
Again I'd like to thank you very much for watching this video.
If you'd like to follow along with the rest of this series...
...or some of my other CNC adventures...
...I do hope you'll subscribe to my channel.
Whether you subscribe to my channel or not...
...I, again, would like to thank you very much for taking the time to watch...
...and y'all take care.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét