Drawing tips for Part Wizard

[jkforney]

Hi
I am starting this thread in the hopes that it will be used to share with others the ways we use Part Wizard. Please post directions on how you do "stuff". I will start.

[jkforney]

I often draw carving designs by working on only one quadrant and then using copy, paste and mirror. For instance:

Draw a box in the upper left hand corner any size but small enough to have four of them on the work surface. Now Edit-Copy. Don't paste yet. Now Model-Mirror-Horizontal. Now Edit-Paste. You should have two identical boxes, one left and one right in top of the workspace. Now Select one and Shift Select the second and Click Group. Then Edit-Copy Model-Mirror-Vertical Edit-Paste. Now you should have four boxes equidistant from each other and from the edges of your work surface.

Of course you can work with any design. Also you can use rulers and guidelines and snap to guidelines to help position your pieces. More on this in another post.

John Forney

[jkforney]

Just reported what I think is a bug with Part Wizard. If you copy and paste an open vector (even an arc) then mirror or rotate from the model menu Part Wizard will mirror or rotate all the copies and the original. You can go into transform and act only on one item.

John

[jkforney]

Also after reading the manual (duh) I find that if you hold the ctrl key down and use the mirror icons on the left side page, you get a copy mirrored and the original.


John Forney

[tlempicke]

I found that my drawing program (Bobcad) is really a lot better suited to drawing parts that must be machined to exact sizes. It has a lot of functionality that PW doesn't (spline, drawing parallel lines, precise angles, etc.)
PW will pick up a DXF file and all of the sizes quite nicely though.
what I have been doing is drawing all of the basics and items with exact placement and measurements in bobcad and then bringing it in to PW as a DXF.
PW generates the tool paths in less time than I can get set up to do it in Bobcad. Try to have everthing in one layer when you bring it over. I have had a couple of times where something was on a layer that was not visible on the PW screen, but it cut anyway.

[jkforney]

Tom
I still use Vector CadCam for drawings for exactly the same reasons, but I am finding that I can do some stuff in PW. I started this thread to explore the capabilities of Part Wizard. Some real advantages to PW. Not only is toolpathing easy but the paths are great. The fact that you pull a bit out of a data base gives you cutter compensation, no more offsets. The easy of use for people that have no other Cad program is not to be under estimated.

Since I also have and use the other ArtCam products, I can see an upgrade path that makes sense. Low learning curve and much more robust functions.

John

[tlempicke]

John

We wanted to cut a simple part out of an irregular piece of material. Held it down by screwing it to the table. As a result I wanted to put an "X" in the very middle of it and then use that for my origin, instead of the lower left corner.

After stumbling around a bit we found out that in the very first screen where you set up the job (Setup Job Dimensions) you simply click on where you want the job origin to be. Couldn't be easier.

HOWEVER - when we generate a tool path (Profiling screen) we have a "Home Position" that apparently does not affect the cutting paths.

What is that used for?

[jkforney]

Tom
I change the x=0 and y=0 to -7 on a 14 inch square. It seems to move the cutter to the bottom left hand corner and then back to start the cut. The only thing I can think of is that you might be able to start from a position other than your working home. If you needed to take a round about path to your first cut you could. Maybe if you finished one file and needed to change tools, then miss a clamp. Other than that I find limited (read none) use.

John Forney

[jkforney]

As far as my reported bug, it is not. It says quite plainly that when I was attempting to rotate a part I was in the Model Menu. So PW was rotating and mirroring the entire model, just like it states.

Use the rotate and mirror tools in transform and Vector Editing to rotate parts or vectors

John Forney

[RonV]

Jeff: It is best to post my option here. I have tried Parts Wizard and have no use for it, you can do everything you need to do in 2d in Turbocad in minutes.
I will leave it at this point, it is best to read the topics about the program.
Ron V

[tlempicke]

I just tied to save a part wizard file as a bitmap, a jpg and whatever else was allowed in the program. It just saves a blank sheet? What gives? I tried selecting all before I saved - no help.

[jeff]

RonV, which question of mine was that a reply to?

[RonV]

Im sorry I should have said Jeff T, I got an email for help on Part Wizard and told him to come here, he must have bought his machine from another shopbotter and did not know about this forum.
Since I do not use the program he might find help here.

Ron V

[peterk]

while i have not tried parts wizard , i must agree with Ron V. turbocad versions with a join polyline feature is a very quick and easy way to create the toolpaths for 2d. just draw the part the easiest way, explode all and join polyline,offset line for the cutter , delete original, save as dxf and convert to shopbot code.

[gerald_d]

Peterk, could you have a look at this (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/31/1206.html?1036060410#POST7096) thread please?

[lance@avalonteam.com]

I still have mixed feelings about PW. There's somethings that are much easier than in Vector. Since we work a lot with Illustrator files, PW has been great. We always had issues doing that in Vector.

One issue that I've had with PW is creating raised lettering. It seems if I have too many letters, it just doesn't carve out some letters. I've looked into it being a font issue, but that doesn't seem to be it. I think it might have something to do with how close the letters are. For example, I had one sign with the customer's web address on it, but PW would keep leaving out the "www". When I looked closer, it seemed the tips of the w's we touching. When I opened the kerning it would carve it. Has anyone else had this issue?

One more question, can you just buy more fonts for PW or do you have to upgrade one of the higher end packages?

Thanks!