TurboCad 6 vs 10.2 with Ace Converter

[goodeye]

I have been using TurboCad 6 standard (saving as Acad R14) and Ace converter to produce my Gcodes for over a year now with no problems. I also use FlashCut 2.1 as a CNC simulator with no problems. I downloaded TurboCad 10.2 demo to see If I would want to buy it. I have found that I can no longer get correct conversions with Ace while using TCad 10.2 saving as Acad R14. Certain parts of the drawing don't even display on FlashCut now but 'fillets' are particularly troublesome. I have also tried saving as Acad R12..No help. Flashcut will import a Tcad 10.2 produced DXF file and convert it properly but Flashcut does not support layers.. I must assume Tcad 6 and 10.2 do not save DXF files in exactly the same format even when selecting Acad R12 or R14. Any thoughts?

Greg

[ger21]

Try an even older .dxf version, like R10 if it's available. You might also try exploding the problem objects first.

[goodeye]

I have figured out a work around for the ACE converter and TCad 10.2 compatibility issues. 1) I saved my drawing in TCad 10.2 as a DWG (Acad R12 format). 2) I opened the TCad 10.2 DWG file in TCad 6 and then saved it as a DXF (Acad R12 format). 3) Now when that DXF file is opened and converted with ACE converter...all is good! I think that proves TCad 10.2 saves DXF files differently than TCad 6 even when Acad R12 is the chosen preference in both versions (at least when using ACE converter). I really like TCad 10.2 better than TCad 6 as far as the drawing functions are concerned, but I don't know if I want to go through all that mess to get good g-codes.

[ger21]

You could buy Sheetcam. Or try downloading th Flashcut demo. I hear that does a decent job of .dxf > gcode.

[goodeye]

I have tried Sheetcam and FlashCut. SheetCam is not very user friendly (at least to me) and FlashCut doesn't support layers or recognize points in a drawing (but it is user friendly). There are work arounds for the point and layer issues too but I just use FlashCut as a cut simulator for now.. The Mach2 demo seems to handle TCad 10.2 DXF files ok so I might play around with that a little (full version way too expensive though, would never consider buying it).

Greg

[ger21]

I'm writing a VBA macro for AutoCAD to write gcode from right inside AutoCAD. If you know VBA programming, you could probably do the same in TurboCAD.

[duzallcnc]

The problem may be in ACE converter. Ace doesn't convert polyarcs correctly. Early versions of Turbocad output lines and arcs. Polylines are supported in Turbocad versions10 and up for sure. So If your DXF file has polyarcs Ace will output bad Gcode.

If you explode before creating your dxf Ace should work.

[rippersoft]

Polylines are bad for Ace and some other converters as well. If you select the entire drawing and "Explode" the drawing into lines, then save to dxf, the conversion will work fine.

RipperSoftware