Hi Michael,

This method fixed the one area but the area around the hole still doesn't work or at least doesn't wok properly.

I think that the problem is that the rectangular block has to be located exactly at the middle of the hole otherwise it won't line up properly with the hole thingee. Very interesting.

The look that I was going for is a smoothe transition from the high areas to the low areas.

I will try to use the front and top views to draw curved lines to represent the wine balancer!

Gary

Hi Gary, so it sounds like you already know what the problem is, but just in case yes it is the block didn't quite go far enough to meet up with the edge from the rounded piece:





So instead of there being one edge there, there are 2 edges that are a very small distance away from each other - that's another thing that is bad for filleting unfortunately.

But your model in this case is a lot closer, I'll see if I can tune up that one spot.

- Michael

Hi Gary, I've attached here what I've been able to come up with - there is going to be some difficulty filleting the remaining edges though because the fillet would need to come to a kind of collapsed point which MoI's filleter doesn't handle particularly well.

- Michael

Hi Gary, I've attached another version here with some additional partial fillets added - these were done by separating the model into individual surfaces and selecting 2 surfaces at a time to do a surface/surface fillet.

You can kind of see here how there is some difficulty with multiple fillet pieces running into one another and needing to kind of disappear into a single point at the top parts - MoI's filleting engine is not good enough to handle those areas automatically. That means you may need to trim away some portions of the model and construct some surfaces in there manually to patch things together.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

As that shape really wasn't what I was after I decided to try a different approach. As I already had the basic outline I ended up just creating a bunch of outlines of it along x and then lofting it. The end cut and the bottle hole were don after.

It looks good except for the end near the bottle hole. Is there a way to get a rounded end without a flat spot as I now have?

I took this model into the trial of cut 3d and it worked! Lots of cutting time. This is just a learning exercise at this point so I know that I wouldn't actually process these using a 3d cutting package! I have already several using just 2d cuts.

Gary

Hi Gary,

> Is there a way to get a rounded end without a flat spot as I now have?

You'd probably want to incorporate a rounded end more directly into your original curve structure to get that.

I'd probably try some steps like this:

Start by drawing a 180 degree arc which will give the rounded end shape that you want:



Now draw in a curve for the side shape:



Mirror that and draw a line connecting them:



Now Extrude this to make a solid out of it - extrude it a ways further than what you need for the final shape because we'll cut off a portion of the top piece to give it additional shape:



Now go to an side elevation view, and draw in a new curve that divides the extrusion into 2 pieces and has the additional contour that you want:



Select the extrusion and run the Boolean Difference command, use that side curve as the cutting object, that will slice the extrusion into 2 pieces:



Delete the top piece. Now select these edges:



And fillet:




I've attached a 3DM model here with that result and the curves I used in it if you want to experiment with those.

Hope this helps,
- Michael

WOW,

Thanks Michael. If there's a hard way to do something I'll find it.

This is great!

Gary

Gary,

Mind if I ask you about your setup? I built a "Joe's Hybrid" and I'm using Vectic Cut 3D and Cut 2D for CAM. There are a lot of really creative and generous people on this forum, but I think that most remain in the digital world. I know it's on a case by case basis, but I'd love to hear tips on how best to model for a machining process. For example my first project in MOI (and on my cnc machine) was a simple plate. The 3D machining process was going to take over an hour and the end results really weren't that great. So I ended up making a slightly simplified plate and using curves rather than surfaces I could complete the process just using 2D machining. The job took less than 10 minutes to complete and came out very nice. Looking at your project, I suspect that unless you have a high end CAM program and a very fast machine a 2D process might save you a lot of time.

Bob

Hi Bob...
When looking at your machining job, you will "prefer" to use 2d machining jobs, as it is a much simpler and faster process.. 3d toolpath strategies are reserved for a 3d surface that a "tool" cant make, though the cut time goes up and higher end packages are required for various results in different ways.... Although, "higher end" would be for jobs like a "Z-Level convex finish"... Most jobs like this can be a simple "slice planar" or raster type job... There are even free programs that will do this well (Although you both mention you already have vectric ) MoI has recently created a partnership with Alibre, that offers a simple rastering 3d toolpather for free.... :o

"1 hour" for a cut is not really very long ( maybe for your needs, but not in general) We regularly run 14 hour jobs, sometimes extending into the next day...

Thanks Burr. I'll check out that Allibre program. As you suggest, I've learned to reserve 3D cutting for shapes that cannot be created with a 2D toolpath or a special router bit. As a hobbyist with virtually zero CAD and absolutely no prior CAM or CNC experience it's taken me quite a while to develop my techniques. I also won't try to hide my disappointment in learning that making a model in MOI might not be the most difficult step in the production process. I was a bit naive as to the capabilities of CNC machine and how the whole process worked. Still, it's been a great experience. Re: machining time, I've done some longer projects but an hour for anything made of MDF is too long :) - but I understand what you're saying.

Thanks again.

Bob

Hi BobK,

>Mind if I ask you about your setup? I built a "Joe's Hybrid" and I'm using Vectic Cut 3D and Cut 2D for CAM

I have a very elderly Shopbot PRT96 from 2000 AD, actually one of the first of these models. I now use Vectric's VcarvePro v5.5 for 2d cutting out and 2 1/2d v carving.

I have been trying to get into 3d cutting for years but I am absolutely stupid when it comes to cadd and all other 3d packages including silo and McNeels stuff. I had pretty much given up on ever being able to use 3d design software and therefore couldn't do 3d cutting. I have a current version of Alibre Standard and just bought a whole whack of training materials but I have since given up. Then last year I found MOI3d but couldn't believe that it would work as advertised or that I would be able to learn it. Since I spent some time on the v2 trial and Michael has help me I bought the package and it's great.

The latest wine bottle balancer was just an exercise to learn how to use moi3d - for this piece I would only use 3d cutting to create a master. The cutting time was 1 hour 45 minutes. I am planning on buying cut3d as soon as I learn moi3d. Iy seems that if you are dealing with well of people, cost isn'y so important if the product is a one of a kind.

How do you like the cut 3d?

I find that Vectric's products are amazing especially Photo Vcareve.

Gotta go battery is dyingggggggggggg

Gary

Hay Bob,
I realized last night I was in error with the cnc software... "Alibre" is a CAD package, and has a CAM system as a third party add-on.. The CAM software ( and the free 3d rasterer I had mentioned ) is "VisualMill" and they have a product called freemill... They are here: http://www.mecsoft.com

Anyway, correction posted.

Gary,

Cut 3D works very well. The tutorials do a good job of explaining the software and the tool paths are fine. It is not as advanced as a package like Visual Mill though. You can't select different machining strategies for different areas of your part. It does a good job with models made in MOI. Simply save your model as a .stl file and import it into Cut3D. Make a few choices about your material and how you want to machine it (similar to V-Carve) and within a minute or so you'll have a set of roughing and finishing tool paths. You might want to give the demo a try and also check out FreeMill as Burr suggests. It doesn't have as many bells and whistles as Cut 3D but it works just fine.

Thanks Burr. I learned about FreeMill after I bought Cut 3D. I tried it a few months ago and it works as advertised.

Bob

One good reason to look at a system that uses NURBS data, is it will be analyzing a true NURBS surface and generating off of that.. If your package requires STL data, then everything will be linear cuts.. Although with MoI, you can dice up your model well and simulate curvature well enough that you dont need to run out and buy something different.. You would look for something different if the "toolpath strategy" in the package was somethinhg you needed.. Like an equaldistance offset or a Z level finish, or a 4th axis or something..

Then as you progress into cnc, your needs will change, like the abilities to control the tools entry and exit from the material more...Or to control different types of machines and various other aspects.. This is where you start to move up in the price range. You dont want to run your $400,000.00 Haas with a $200.00 software :o

You could also take a look at CamBam for your CAM program. It has both 2D and 3D machining strategies and these can be freely combined within the same operation. File imports are dxf, stl, raw, 3ds and gcode itself for backplotting, so it should work well 'straight out of the box' with MoI for 3D work, but I'm sure MoI also has a utility program somewhere that will allow dxf files to be produced from its drawing data and that means you could use just the two programs for all your CAD/CAM work.

Some example work here:-
http://www.cambam.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=897.msg4755#msg4755 and here http://www.cambam.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=751.0

Martin.

Thanks BobK,

I tried the demo of Cut3D and it worked quite well, although it seems a little on the bare bones side.

I have also left a message on their Cut3D forum related to how anyone uses Cut3d as far as bringing files in for processing - file types and file types used specifically from Moi3d. No response as yet. Thanks for your advice! I'm not sure about which cam package to use yet. I had better learn Moi3d first.

How do you like your machine? I see on some of the other forums that there are quite a few of them out there.

I was interested in the Mechmate machine as it looked pretty serious, but I'm not a hands on mechanical type so if I get another machine it will have to be a prebuilt, probably from Axyz with servos.

I find that Moi3D is extremely powerful and in most ways simple to use. I have yet to work through all of the manuals commands and the scripts that are available. I'm not very intuitive when it comes to learning new things. It was a real struggle to learn low level programming in my youth, but once learned it was easy to handle!

Anyway, I digress. Thanks for the responses.

Thanks Burrman for your advise. I looked at Visual Mill years ago. I found that for 2d and some vcarve work that Vectric's VcarvePro satisfied all of my needs and was very intuitive

Gary.

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the link. That stuff looks amazing!

It sure looks powerful and easier for saving templates for later use, in similar jobs, which seems easier than most. I will certainly give it a look when I get to the point with Moi3d that I am comfortable creating one offs from hardwoods and exotic woods (from managed forests, of course) for sale as unique pieces.

What type of work do you do with Cambam?

Gary

Hi Gary.
I use it for all sorts of 2D/3D cnc work.
I've made quite a few moulds from stl files and one of the nice things about CamBam that I find very convenient, is that it's able to cut one from the actual solid model itself. So no messing about, by having to subtract the positive to get a negative.
In case you didn't you know, it has 40 trial sessions (over any length of time), so you could grab a copy and have a play at your leasure.
Like MoI, it's also got a friendly, well behaved forum.

Martin.

Gary,

I like my Hybrid. It took about a month to build but at the end of the project I knew exactly what each part did and where to source a spare. It also gave me the confidence to do some modifications of my own. I drew up a new Z in MOI and cut it using my original Hybrid. It was my first project in aluminum and thanks to MOI everything fit perfectly. Re: downloading files into Cut 3D, it's a snap. When in MOI use the file save as command and select either stl or obj then import the file into Cut 3D. Unfortunately I seem to remember that the demo wasn't fully functional. I think you can only run files included in the demo.






Bob

BobK,

Thanks for the info on Cut3D. I really appreciate hearing from someone that is actually using a package.

I think that Vectric's VcarvePro is the best package that I came across. I had tried or bought and abandoned several packages before theirs and it is amazing how easy to use it is and how powerful it is for a 2 and a 2 1/2 dimension package. Their photo carving package does amazing things in wood as well!

I do find that the Cut3D package seems a little bare. I will probably buy it though as I know for a fact that it will work because it's from Vectric.

Thanks again,

Gary