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OK I am cutting out some files out of MDF and noticed that I have several inside cuts that are large enough to put other things in them. So I drew a 2d fleur de lis and am trying to nest this inside of the waste pieces. I for the life of me cant get this to work. I have looked at the tutorial and still I am having trouble. Has anyone ever done this before?
Perry, First make sure you have the very latest upgrade to your Vectric product by opening VCP (if online) and going to the help menu and clicking "Check for Upgrades".
If not on-line(like my control computer), it's slightly more problematic if you have the "Shopbot Edition" as the standard downloads aren't recognized. Shopbot usually has their editions available, but not always up to date on latest Vectric "tweaks".
I noticed on my control computer VCP 7.510 has problems nesting Buttons, whereas 2 design computers running VCP 7.514 DON'T.
Vectrics latest VCP addressed a nesting problem.
That said, when in nesting--Do you have "allow parts within parts" Checked? Also may want to play with the "allow rotation of parts" angle, and if it's ok for the job, "allow mirrored parts".
Also sometimes playing with your tolerance #'s will allow it.
If all else fails, you can manually draw One with the Fleur inside--Toolpath it(including tabs)- and then Group and linear array- Ungroup?
LOTS of variables. Try playing with it a little(can be frustrating at first, but neat tool).:)
If it is just one part that needs to get done soon copy and paste.
After that you can play with all the nesting stuff like Scott posted to get it to work.
thanks Scott and Kyle for your reply.
Scott, I think I am doing this just as you suggested so I will continue tweeking with it.
Kyle, I have a ton of projects to cut out so I just want to make use of every blank piece that will be availiable.
Sounds good, At my start in this nesting never seemed to work for me.
A couple of things about nesting,
Check the box that says allow parts in other parts.
pay attention to the rotation allowed. A smaller value will often lead to better results but takes longer to calculate.
I find that I can nest the parts more efficiently for cutting than the algorithm, but that takes time on my part.
David
I use the nesting tool for pretty much every job I do. It works well for odd shapes and sizes like letters but for more regular shapes you may get better results using the array copy tools instead.
The settings you have are correct for putting items inside others but you must make allowances for the clearance and tool diameter combination. It may look like the part will fit in the scrap but by the time you've added those settings on it won't. I would recommend putting the rotation to 1 degree if you want to make the best use of the material with odd shapes and sizes. It is a fair bit slower with that setting though for obvious reasons.
From your description it sounds like you're expecting the nesting tool to place the letters in the scrap parts automatically. It won't do that. You might get some letters in the scrap but equally you might get some in the outside material or even some of your other parts in the scrap.
If you want the letters in the scrap only then you will need to place them manually or draw vector boundaries and do a two stage nest.
Almost all my stuff is nested. I do use the nest inside of parts and that works pretty good. For some of my jobs I have to copy 2 parts and turn them 180 to get the most out of a sheet. One job I do I can get 80 parts doing it this way and the company that I do it for can only get 60 parts when they nest. I won't tell them how I do it though.