Machining my part with out cutting everything

[desktoprouters]

I want to cut the part in the attached picture.

Any program I import the STL or other file into, wants to cut the whole face on the part.

If I already have a flat board and want to save A LOT of time. How can I get a program to ignore the board portion and just cut out the board from a larger piece, and also drill out the stepped holes.

What would be the best software to do this? I would also need tabs to hold the board as it finishes. The board is going to be about 9 inches long by 5 wide and 3/4" thick.

I designed in solid works, but I am not very good with the software yet.

[braidmeister]

You don't want to machine this part as an STL. It is a simple 2D part, that can be drawn up with 2D vectors (lines) and then drilling and milling toolpaths applied to those vectors. ANY CAM program can machine that part as 2D.

-Brady

[viny]

no wonder i am still a novice ,i have never heard they use solidworks for machining....i am not in the manufacturing side so not sure of the latest developments ... master cam is one of the best cam software but it is hard to do complicated modelling in it .for that attached part it can be used even you can do that program manually ( just my opinion) ...unigraphics is good in machining and modelling , i feel after that PRO-e is good ..but never heard of solidworks used in machining, can some one shed some light into it.

[holbieone]

it's not a hard part to program by hand

if i was going to use a cam program it would be pro-e

let me know if you need a hand programing it

i have a lot of different software packages for generating tool paths

[holbieone]

Originally Posted by viny no wonder i am still a novice ,i have never heard they use solidworks for machining....i am not in the manufacturing side so not sure of the latest developments ... master cam is one of the best cam software but it is hard to do complicated modelling in it .for that attached part it can be used even you can do that program manually ( just my opinion) ...unigraphics is good in machining and modelling , i feel after that PRO-e is good ..but never heard of solidworks used in machining, can some one shed some light into it.

there's a lot of third party add ons for solidworks

[desktoprouters]

As I mentioned, I'm not too good with the software yet. This is a simple item to follow along with the tutorials. I'm just trying to grasp the concept of how things are going to pan out in the end, in the machine.

So braidmeister, even with the recess on the board above, you say a simple 2D process would work better? I thought the small recess on the hole would make this more 3D and a little more complicated.

I like how people like to say, use this software, or try this software. And each piece of software runs in the thousands of dollars! Too funny. I'm sticking with one for now, solid works.

Thanks for the responses, this is helping.

[ger21]

If you can export a 2D .dxf, look at SheetCAM, www.sheetcam.com You can download a demo.

[JerryFlyGuy]

Heck, for that just get Mach 3 and use Lazy CAM [comes w/] it will do what you want. Solidworks doesn't have a 'native' CAM, however there are LOTS of add-in CAM's which run in/under solidworks. Being as your doing a 2.5D part, you'll just need the edge profile for your machineing, the hand written code would be 5-10 lines long and be very easy to do even that way, 4 incrimental moves [which could be run as a multi layer cut in Mach 3 if you can't do full depth on the first pass], and 2 drill's, w/ either a drilled c-bore or a milled pocket. done.

Jerry

[S.Kontogiannis]

Try out GSIMPLE, (you can download it for FREE at www.gsimple.gr or at www.polaris.com.gr/gsimple). It is a very simple program and there are some examples which you could follow. It will take some minutes to programm it. The only problem with GSIMPE is that it is made to work in mm and the output has only 3 digits after the .
(For example G01 X3.123 F9.999 and not G01. X3.1234 F9.9999)

Let me know if I can help with GSIMPLE

Originally Posted by desktoprouters I want to cut the part in the attached picture. Any program I import the STL or other file into, wants to cut the whole face on the part. If I already have a flat board and want to save A LOT of time. How can I get a program to ignore the board portion and just cut out the board from a larger piece, and also drill out the stepped holes. What would be the best software to do this? I would also need tabs to hold the board as it finishes. The board is going to be about 9 inches long by 5 wide and 3/4" thick. I designed in solid works, but I am not very good with the software yet.

[DareBee]

Your issue definately has nothing to do with SolidWorks.

That part should be cut using 2.5D CAM.

[desktoprouters]

Thanks for all the responses. I'm trying out some of the free and trial software. It looks like solidworks may be too much to get started with. Gsimple lacks on the user help side. I walk through or tutorial would be nice on creating something with it, but good for being free.

Thanks again and I'll keep learning up on this stuff.