Tips and Tricks

[Smitty911]

Well progress is being made thanks to some help from existing users.

In Mr. Wilds description there are some things even this old dog is learning, so I thought I'd start a Tips and Tricks Post.

Hopefully as more people begin to use this software this area will continue to grow.

CAD Partmaster V10

1. Zoom, Extent, seems to allow zooming of whole piece.
2. When in layers, RIGHT Click the Layer you want and the other window doesn't pop up.
3. When removing all the layers you don't need, make a "JUNK" Layer. Hard to confuse that one.
4. If you are making layers make sure that the * is in box of the layer you want to create.

Please add

[MrWild]

Originally Posted by Smitty911 1. Zoom, Extent, seems to allow zooming of whole piece. 2. When in layers, RIGHT Click the Layer you want and the other window doesn't pop up. 3. When removing all the layers you don't need, make a "JUNK" Layer. Hard to confuse that one. 4. If you are making layers make sure that the * is in box of the layer you want to create. Please add

Extent was one of the first hings i looked for.

I'll give it a go to rignt click while in layers.

I'm gettingg good at going right to layers when a line/point i'm, clicking on gets the warning, "no entities found."

Also, isn't it a total PITA to do a bunch of artwork and then find out you did it on the wrong layer?

Mice with thumbwheels are great. Spin the wheel and you can magnify or zoom out.

[Smitty911]

Mice with the thumb wheel. After you re-draw a line sometime the graphics don't clean up so you can't see if you actually placed a line or Arc in the right spot. The drawing you are copying is in Blue, new lines are in Black. Rolling the wheel zooms in and basically redraws the image.

[Smitty911]

When you get done in re-drawing the contours in CAD, make sure you clink on the NC button and tough and name each of the contours. Otherwise they don't make it to the CAM program.

You can use either the Bars on the right to make a tool path, this will allow you to set up Tool, Depth, Feed Rate, etc. in one location. When you use the tool bar on the bottom you will need to input each of the items in line with when the program needs the information.

Smitty

[MIKE JEFFERS]

use the redraw icon to er redraw the image (in view or the pencil icon)

[MIKE JEFFERS]

use the dropdowns to create your machining stratagies ,you get more options

in the cad side use the group number option in the contour/profile box to "group" similar
depth parts ,this way in cam you can select a contour to machine then in the options tab you can select "machine all contours with the same group number" saves a lot of time ,be aware tho that if these parts are differing depths it will machine all to the
depth of the selected contour ,hence group similar contours on 1 layer

[Chad_Clark]

Originally Posted by MIKE JEFFERS use the dropdowns to create your machining stratagies ,you get more options in the cad side use the group number option in the contour/profile box to "group" similar depth parts ,this way in cam you can select a contour to machine then in the options tab you can select "machine all contours with the same group number" saves a lot of time ,be aware tho that if these parts are differing depths it will machine all to the depth of the selected contour ,hence group similar contours on 1 layer

Using the small toolbar buttons instead of the large ones on the right of the screen does the same as using the drop down menus if you don't have them on the the bottom or left of the screen you just need to turn them on. Go to the toolbars and right click and you will see which ones are activated and which ones aren't.

[MIKE JEFFERS]

yup
just my age showing dates back to the revelation that dropdowns were in acad

[mtzlplyk]

Even better, just press R for re-draw.
You can also change snap mode by pressing F, N, G, P, Q, C etc

[mtzlplyk]

Use the Change All option on the Edit menu. Just follow the wizard through.