Suspension fittings

[Tim Massa]

Would anyone know a way to accurately place a knock in dowel type suspension fitting into an upper cabinet? Using Hafele 290.00.711 and 290.00.710 suspensions.
I used to be able to use a shelf created with "Suspension fitting material" that was 48mm thick. Added the shelf to the cabinet and put in a 0" space above the shelf. This brought the shelf up tight to the cabinets top.

Created a hole pattern consisting of two 10mm holes and used the RTA inset settings in the construction settings to place them in the proper location in the cabinet sides with respect to the back edge insets.

Having some difficulty using this method in the most recent E-cabs version. Haven't used this method since sometime in V5 and wondered if anyone might have a simpler way of adding them into an upper cabinet that could be re-sized or have a material thickness change and not lose suspension fittings hole placement.

Anyone conquer this yet?

Thanks ,
Tim

[Nat Wheatley]

Tim,

I've been able to do this using a method similar to yours, but using a drawer box to place the pattern, instead of a shelf. I created a drawer slide pattern that consisted of both the dowels holes and the notch for the suspension block (I'd been using the Camar fittings). I placed a drawer box tight against the top of the cabinet, the drawer box consisted of just 2 sides (of 'Do Not Cut' material), and the drawer box height was set at the height of the suspension block notch that I'd set the slide up for. The modified slide pattern was applied to the drawer.

The slide pattern that I set up was made to work with my standard wall cabinet depth. For different depth notches the pattern could be moved forward or backward using the . I haven't done this for awhile, but as I recall I had to hold the pattern just slightly off of the top of the cabinet, as when it touched it was causing an error with the notch. I think what I did is to just make the drawer box slightly taller than the notch height. and then was still able to place the drawer box against the top of the cabinet.

I'll try to dig up a cabinet that I used this on, and if I find one I'll post it.

Nat

[Tim Massa]

Thanks Nat,

Interesting approach. Has me thinking it would work better for hole pattern placement using the drawer box. Should also work (hopefully) with a material thickness change at the TWD? So for a different depth of cabinet your drawing a different slide pattern?

I was trying to get an RTA pattern to work on the back portion of the edge. That way cabinet could be re-sized for width and depth without a need for new hole patterns. Can't think of any way to eliminate the Hole pattern from being applied to the front of the shelf edge. I used to throw a negative value at the front and put the pattern out beyond the cabinet part. Have to do a practice and see if it will drill the useless holes into an adjacent part or not. Doesn't show up in the nest but......

I'll try you drawer box idea as it would be a more direct way for most of the cabinets I hang.

Thanks again,
Tim

[Kerry Fullington]

Tim,

Can you not cut the holes in the part editor and constrain them?

[Nat Wheatley]

Tim,

My standard wall cabinet depth is 330mm, which is what I based the slide pattern on. If I had a 400 deep upper cabinet, I'd use the same pattern, but place the drawer with 70 back into the cabinet (400-330).

You should be OK using the RTA pattern, with a negative value for the front hole. I do it frequently, as I use a modified RTA pattern for my pilot holes, and haven't run into an issue of the holes placed off of the part landing on neighboring parts in the nest.

I'll try to post a sample cabinet tomorrow. Wireless connection to my design computer is painfully slow at the moment.

Nat

(Theoretically it should cooperate with changes to material thickness)

[Nat Wheatley]

As Kerry says, you could also cut the holes in the PE and constrain them.

There was a point in one of the versions of the software where any constraints I placed were causing huge delays in cabinet regeneration, so I made an effort to avoid using them at all costs. This has been worked out, but I still prefer to find ways to 'automate' some of these tasks whenever possible.

[Tim Massa]

Hi Kerry,

I tried using part editor holes awhile ago. Problem was going from one material to another. Material thickness varied and would either cause a gap between the top of the cabinet and suspension fitting or the top would be proud of the sides, again due to the suspension fitting location and real world material thickness change.
Idea is to use a trick hole pattern along with a shelf (my old way) or drawer box (Nat's way) with zero clearance between them and the cabinet top. That way any twd material thickness change would (again hopefully) drift the suspension fitting holes up or down to the correct location based on that material thickness change.

I do use part editor cuts and constraints on the notch out for the cabinet back. Just hoping to find an easier way to get the suspension hole pattern into a job's seed and modify it from there.

[Kerry Fullington]

Tim,

The problem using the shelf/rta method (and possibly the drawer method) is that if you re-size cabinet height you must remember to go back into the shelf partition editor and re-enter that "0" gap between the shelf and top. Re-sizing the cabinet will always reposition the shelf you placed. I think it would do the same for the drawer.
with part editor holes constrained you would have a little variance when you write the cnc files and change materials but it should never be more than 1/16" or so. Not much of a problem in wood working. If you are talking about actually using different materials then create seed cabinets out of that material and constrain your holes to it.
I think any of the methods are going to have a plus and minus side.

Kerry

[Nat Wheatley]

Here's a sample cabinet, and the slide pattern (renamed with a .txt extension). The hole pattern does seem to adjust correctly with changes in height, but there's a bug. When you take one of the sides into the PE the notch disappears. I would guess that it's because it's behind the dado for the back, but am not sure. The holes appear to remain in tact though.

[Dennis Englert]

I don't work with this everyday in the real world, but in the training world. I tend to think that there would a benefit to creating libraries that meet most of your needs. For example, if you know that you are going to have upper cabinets of multiple heights, go ahead and make a library of the expected heights. Your library might only be a couple of cabinets, i.e., one double door and one single door, but then the heights are set. From there on you should not have any bothersome backtracking to make sure everything is where you want it.

Changes in cabinet depths may also be better served by making specific library cabinets. Cabinet widths are normally less bothersome, but the design of the cabinet, i.e., multiple door and drawer configurations may cause you to consider making library cabinets for those cases.

The extra effort to create a library or a seed cabinet may save you a ton of time in the end.

Material thickness may be problematic. You need to study your materials and find an average. Create a material with that average thickness and in most cases, as someone said, the result should be acceptable or extremely close. I don't believe the system was ever really designed to support global changes from like 3/4 to 1/2 inch materials, but to make minor changes in material thickness, like .75 to .735 or something along those lines. Minor changes. It would be extremely difficult to program for all of the different possibilities that can be encountered. For example, a change in a back from 3/4 to 1/4 would potentially change the tenon thickness to 1/8" for a blind dado. That would be a really thin tenon.

So bottom line. Consider making a library or libraries to reduce the potential for error and increase your productivity.

Dennis Englert
Manager of Product Training
Thermwood Corporation

[jason galbraith]

Wow, a nearly two year old thread revival, for no apparent reason.

[Scott Marshburn]

If you think that is old check out this.I bet they would add a 60 + category today
http://www.thermwood.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=606

[Dennis Englert]

The topic was on my current page, so didn't check out the date. I certainly didn't dig that far back to retrieve it.

Dennis