From Turbo CAD - Lazy Cam - Mach 3

[John Tribe]

I am a wooden clock designer and builder and have built 22 clocks to date some of which are my designs and other are ones I have purchased.

I design on a Mac in Turbo CAD and then save to DXF. I take the DXF and import it into Lazy CAM and then have Lazy CAM create the gcode.

I open the gcode in Mach3 and its there as it should be and when I simulate the cutting of the piece the screen shows it following the drawing. However there is a significant problem and that is scale.

It appears that the gcode that Mach 3 is executing is about (my guess) 10 times too big, because I put in the table parameters (200 mm by 200 mm) and the gear won't even fit on the table when in fact the gear that Turbo CAD produces and prints out is only 5 inches in diameter

Where do I control the scale of things??

Thanks in advance.

[aminear]

Could it be that Mach is running in Inches and you are inputting MM's?

Arnie

[John Tribe]

Hi Arnie,
That was something that I also considered - and it may be the problem. Turbo CAD is indifferent to the units being used as long as you specify the units when inputting something. However perhaps if I changed units before saving as a DXF I would get a different result - I'll give that a try.

John

[ger21]

Could be that TurboCAD is changing the units when saving the .dxf I've seen other CAD programs do that. If you want to post a small sample .dxf, I'll take a look at it.

[John Tribe]

Here is a very simple DXF file for you to take a look at.

[ger21]

It's about 75 wide and 40 tall. Is that right?

[aminear]

Another option if not a metric/english problem you can adjust the scale of each axis individually. To the right of the DRO is a scale number, click in the box and type in a different scale as needed.

Arnie

[teamtexas]

Have you check the scale button on the left of Lazy Cam. You should be able to change the scale there.

Dan

[LeeWay]

I did open this in Turbocad and it opened in inches. It was really big.
I switched MM for inches and it is smaller now.
You switch this by going to Options, Space Units toward the bottom of the fly down.
Don't check the box that says "Convert Units after alteration". This will make it the same size in mm as it now is in inches.
Leaving that box unchecked just swaps units.

[r56554]

We just put together a CNC router that is posted else where on this site and we had the same problems. We use a program called design CAD for all our drawings, then save it to DXF. Then we import it to lazy cam to set it up for G-code and then import it to our Mach 3 and that is were the problems started. We had the same problems you are having. Here is the fix Remove Lazy Cam and go with another software. We switched to V Carve and the problems are gone. We still have a small problems once in awhile, but nothing like before. I tell the guys in the shop ESO "equipment smarter then the operator"

Red

[John Tribe]

Hi,
To all those who provided input to this thread I want to thank you very much. Although I have arrived at a different "solution" than those suggested it was as a result of your input that steered me until I arrived at the following.
1. I save the file in Turbo Cad in inches.
2. In Lazy Cam under the scale menu I convert inches>mm and post to gcode
3. In Mach 3 my native units are mm (don't know if that matters or not) and then the file opens to a recognizable size. I'm still out about 3% but I can componsate for that in Lazy Cam Scale dialogue box. In my application of cutting wooden clock gears I will have to be within 1mm in 200 on overall size.

John