Phlatboyz g-code

[gsartor_1999]

Looking for things my students can do on our Shopbot Desktop when I ran across the "Phlatboyz" and their CNC machine.

http://www.phlatboyz.com/

The forum has lots of free user created files that were created in SketchUp and translated into a G-code that works on their machine. Is there an easy way to get those files (.cnc is the listed filetype) into partworks? In particular there are lots of airplanes made from foam and several cool sliceforms (which I know I can do in SketchUp-I bought the plug-in) but I have not even figured out how to get any designs from SketchUp to Partworks never mind the G-code for another system.

Maybe I am just jumping ahead of myself but if anyone has some good advice about where to start with file conversions/translations/g-code etc. I would appreciate it. Maybe I can wrap my brain around it this summer.

[srwtlc]

Gina,

Shopbot (SB3) will read/execute G-code with exception of some commands. I'd try running a file through it in preview or air cut well above the surface to see how the code passes. You should be able to rename the file to .tap or .nc and give it a try. If some commands are not recognized, you can choose to ignore and continue. If that doesn't work, there are ways to convert the code, but it may just be an instance where all that is needed is to remove some of the header info and replace it with commands that SB3 will read.

Post one of the G-code files so we can take a look at it.

[CNYDWW]

Since those guys use SketchUp exclusively. I found their section which includes the sketchup files for download from google's 3d warehouse.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?mid=2da5b5cd2604864aeed03cf817273764&ct=mdcc&prevstart=0

If you get the free version of sketchup and then a DXF exporter. You can import the dxf's from sketchup and open them up in partworks.

Regards
Randy

[Zeron]

You can use NCPlot to convert the .cnc files to .dxf files, import, then offset the lines by the radius of the cutter.