staring at the hour glass...

[Claude Boudreau]

Hi Claude,
Try dwoods suggestions to get a path... I only have 4 gigs, but a 64 bit OS which will get me a little more ram.. I also have xeon processors which may help...

I played with this file back on a 32 bit p4 and couldnt get that path either intill I dropped my parameters down...

If you setup a file with a feature and geometry selected as you are looking for, I'll see if I can toolpath (just calculate) it and get it back to you.. You could then just post the code..

Tried dwood suggestions , did not help.
2.8 GHz processor 2.5Gbyte Ram here...
What I dont understand is, I had created the toolpath before.
Although it was the reverse image (your first example posted)and I dont think I had the internet connected then...(tried working off line too but cant even reproduced the file created a while back)
I cant post the bbcd file as the zip file is over the max size .
How would you drop your parameters down using v-carve?
Its my intention to use 60deg vbit .5 in diam.
.5 inch dept of cut,no pocketing, 50 inch per minute.

[BurrMan]

Hi Claude, those cutting params are fairly minimal... The only other way to drop them is as dwood was suggesting (less resolution in the toolpath)

As I had pointed out before, after calculationg those toolpaths I showed, closing and reopening the file, my system took over 2 gigs of memory "just to open the file". It was like 90 mb's....

You pointed out that you have 2.5 gigs of RAM.. The 3 gig switch will work to enable a 32 bit OS to access more than 1.6 or something like that, but you have to have the ram there to enable it.. (Like 4 gigs)....

Did you try to use BobArt to create a surface that you could 3d toolpath?..

[Claude Boudreau]

claude
under current settings try setting your
machining to .001 and spline facet to .002
any larger mine would omit some areas
also i did this in two parts see pic. where i separated
this just made life easier
so you know the 3 g switch did not play well with my system either

don't forget to pay attention to the way you select the circles or tool path is on wrong side

I had manage to split the drawing like you before, but had kept the center part and was able to produce the positive image I was hoping for with that smaller drawing.
Maybe I will try to do it in 2 parts like you.
Thanks everyone,specially you BurrMan, you always seem to find time to help everyone in need.

[dwood]

claude
i just tried my toolpath again on 23 in diameter , on outter part
took around 40 minutes when i post the code it takes longer
so when i post the code i go to bed

also here is a file of my outer part file for you
i can not remember how much i had to clean up, but it was some
i am using v 24 so it is a step file

[Claude Boudreau]

claude
i just tried my toolpath again on 23 in diameter , on outter part
took around 40 minutes when i post the code it takes longer
so when i post the code i go to bed

also here is a file of my outer part file for you
i can not remember how much i had to clean up, but it was some
i am using v 24 so it is a step file

thanks, unfortunately I am unable to use these step file with ver.23

[dwood]

hey claude
you should be able to open the file in v23
i can with mine, it just will not save any features with step
but should be clean file, i just put a tool path on that file with my v23
if it works for you just save as bbcd file

[Claude Boudreau]

hey claude
you should be able to open the file in v23
i can with mine, it just will not save any features with step
but should be clean file, i just put a tool path on that file with my v23
if it works for you just save as bbcd file

I only got the trial version at home I will try it in my shop tomorrow.
Did you say you had to do some cleaning of the file?

[dwood]

claude
sometime back you had ask for some help on a calendar file
and burr helped you with the circles in the center section
i am sure he used fit arcs to clean them up, i know that is what i did
the out side area i am not sure where i got the file from
that is when i got interested in doing one, i downloaded from several places
to try all the files i could find, this may even be from what you
uploaded, i am not sure, i am sure i did several things to this
outter section to clean it up

this is the settings i used today to tool path in v23
current settings .001 & .002
preferences part settings .0005 & .001
and the other thing i always forget is
turn all the way down shading & wire frame quality while toolpathing
makes a difference on my computer
one good thing is you, bill south and others motivated me to do one

[Claude Boudreau]

claude
sometime back you had ask for some help on a calendar file
and burr helped you with the circles in the center section
i am sure he used fit arcs to clean them up, i know that is what i did
the out side area i am not sure where i got the file from
that is when i got interested in doing one, i downloaded from several places
to try all the files i could find, this may even be from what you
uploaded, i am not sure, i am sure i did several things to this
outter section to clean it up

this is the settings i used today to tool path in v23
current settings .001 & .002
preferences part settings .0005 & .001
and the other thing i always forget is
turn all the way down shading & wire frame quality while toolpathing
makes a difference on my computer
one good thing is you, bill south and others motivated me to do one

Downloaded your file ok but getting open lines or entity error message when trying to toolpath.
So find an old file of mine that was ok , try it with these setting , after about an hour of computing , thougth I finally had it only to realize there was some missing parts not toolpathed...so try to reset to default and it did the same thing again.
I'm not sure now what the default value were.

[dwood]

claude
default
current settings are .0005 & .001
part settings are .0001 & .001
i do not know what exactly the difference is in what you are getting
probably in the upload
i did cut the step file with v23 yesterday at 13.625 diameter

do you have your original file with just the center section
if so upload and i will see if i can get it cleaned up
need to get something to work again
might be a little while, got to work

[Claude Boudreau]

claude
default
current settings are .0005 & .001
part settings are .0001 & .001
i do not know what exactly the difference is in what you are getting
probably in the upload
i did cut the step file with v23 yesterday at 13.625 diameter

do you have your original file with just the center section
if so upload and i will see if i can get it cleaned up
need to get something to work again
might be a little while, got to work

Hum, I dont recall seeing a .0005 anywhere I think it was .0001 and .001 on both of them now.
Its not the inner circle I have problem with I was able to do that part.
Its the outer ring you posted , I dont know why but there were 3 colors use on your file , when I selected the other 2 colors, they seem to be something there, as the delete button lit up but I could not see anything, so I just deleted them, and the extra color disapeared. But I'm still getting a open entity or line error.
Maybe you posted the wrong file? There was a small line on the bottom right part of the drawing that had to be deleted, but I cant see anything else.

Anyway dont waste time on this , I found one of my old file that is ok, although I cant toolpath the positive image.
I'm begining to think I should upgrade my ram.
How much ram do you have?

[dwood]

try this file it is 13 inch
i took the step file i just machined and saved as .bbcd with v23
it does seem to add some colors to the step file

when saving to other file types there is information added
that may create this, i am not a computer guy
also
let me clarifiy
under cam part machine parameters
tolerences machine tolerences 0.0005 pretty sure these are defaults
spline facet 0.0010
if machine tolerence is set to 0.0001 then it will take a lot of computer to tool path a v carve on this or most art work

maybe burr will help you on your computer needs