new feature request

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Dave Burtchell
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new feature request

Post by Dave Burtchell »

Would be really, really nice if we could have a double pass feature where the first pass is .030 outside the outline and second pass is the outline cut.
As long as we're wishing, how about the first pass in "double pass" being climb cut and second pass conventional? We're trying to eliminate that d@#%, pesky double pass lip on the bottom edge.

Dave
Forrest Chapman
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Re: new feature request

Post by Forrest Chapman »

Yep, been discussed at length for 4 or 5 years now. Always good to revisit things though. Forrest
Dave Burtchell
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Re: new feature request

Post by Dave Burtchell »

Yeah, I was part of that 4-5 years ago. Haven't heard anything lately. I've been reading the woodweb cnc forum and it seems like these features are common with a lot of other machines. Why not ours?

Dave
Forrest Chapman
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Re: new feature request

Post by Forrest Chapman »

I'm really not sure why other than possibly having to focus elsewhere for financial reasons. It seems like it would be easy enough but maybe not. On the upside things are really starting to move again and we are hearing some new things are happening so maybe soon. Forrest
Bryan Sullivan
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Re: new feature request

Post by Bryan Sullivan »

At the very least, if the double pass pieces were climb cut on both passes, it would be an improvement in my opinion. We primarily machine 3/4 double sided melamine and currently I manually pull all small pieces out of the nest to run separately in a climb cut sheet. This pretty much eliminates the material savings of the cnc because all the small pieces could fill the nooks and crannies among the larger pieces. It's also a huge waste of time! Still better than sanding or trimming the lip. We often make drawers out of the same material as the cabinets. All of those parts, and anything else under 280sq" gets pulled out. This has been a huge disappointment with the cnc. I do not know how everybody else deals with the lip, but I would love to hear how thermwood dealt with it when they were manufacturing cabinets on their machines.
Josh Rayburn
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Re: new feature request

Post by Josh Rayburn »

Count me in on the want list.
This would be an excellent feature - I would use it EVERY DAY.
I have also requested it in the past, hope it's getting closer to the top of the list since it's been a while.... :)
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JohnLashuay
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Re: new feature request

Post by JohnLashuay »

Here is a thread from late 2010 about this: http://www.thermwood.com/forums/viewtop ... ass#p62661
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Stephen Tinkler
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Re: new feature request

Post by Stephen Tinkler »

Do you find this lip is all the way around the part?, with us it is more noticeable along the Y cut :wall:

Is this an ongoing problem with no conclusion!.

Thanks Stephen
Bryan Sullivan
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Re: new feature request

Post by Bryan Sullivan »

We have the "lip" on all edges of double cut pieces. We used to have a dedicated router table with a flush trim bit to clean up these parts. If you want to talk about redundancy, its watching a new cnc cut out 100 cabinet parts, and 25 of them being cleaned up manually on a $150 dollar router. Although it wastes material, increases the likely hood of missing a part, and takes additional time, I now manually sort out the small parts, and run them on climb cut. If this climb on double pass feature is available for the inexpensive shopbot, why not the thermwood. How does everyone else deal with cutting small (14"x20") and smaller parts? We cut double sided 3/4" melamine 95% of the time, 3/8" compression. Not to sound too negative, the recent control nesting updates are great (grouping all flip ops together), and the lock dado is the most useful innovation I have seen in while. It's an excellent method of joinery. Thanks for the improvements Thermwod, looking forward to the double pass lip being resolved.
Gerry A Brown
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Re: new feature request

Post by Gerry A Brown »

When ramping in with a compression cutter for outline cuts it is inevitable that you will get chipping when plunging the up cut portion of the cutter. I am somewhat dumbfounded that there is not a ramp in & down option to avoid this :shock: It seems we just have to live with chipped edges until this is addressed. This & double cut would ensure a chip free edge when cutting hard surface materials.

The last time this was discussed a lot of the replies stated that they had given up waiting for this to be resolved & moved on to other software.
It seems a good clean chip free edge would be a absolute requirement for a quality cabinet manufacturer. We are a new Thermwood owner & I went with Thermwood because I had been using the eCabinets program for 10 years but if these concerns are not going to be addressed then we will need to change software. The problem is we have no idea if or when any of this will be resolved. We are reluctant to learn a new program only to find that these issues are addressed in the next update :( Your proverbial rock & a hard spot.

FWIW
Gerry
Daniel Odom
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Re: new feature request

Post by Daniel Odom »

Bryan Sullivan wrote:We have the "lip" on all edges of double cut pieces. We used to have a dedicated router table with a flush trim bit to clean up these parts. If you want to talk about redundancy, its watching a new cnc cut out 100 cabinet parts, and 25 of them being cleaned up manually on a $150 dollar router. Although it wastes material, increases the likely hood of missing a part, and takes additional time, I now manually sort out the small parts, and run them on climb cut. If this climb on double pass feature is available for the inexpensive shopbot, why not the thermwood. How does everyone else deal with cutting small (14"x20") and smaller parts? We cut double sided 3/4" melamine 95% of the time, 3/8" compression. Not to sound too negative, the recent control nesting updates are great (grouping all flip ops together), and the lock dado is the most useful innovation I have seen in while. It's an excellent method of joinery. Thanks for the improvements Thermwod, looking forward to the double pass lip being resolved.
Not saying that I don't like the idea of a roughing pass; sounds great, but we cut a lot of melamine and haven't had any lip issues. We tab all of our small parts like stretchers and toe kicks, so you still have to rout off the tabs but I haven't noticed any lips as the parts generally don't move. I have my control nesting set up so that it never does an "official" double pass or onion skin, I just cut through and use max penetration to make sure it only cuts about half way through each pass, cutting smallest outlines first using a mortise tipped compression. I think a lot of the lip issues may stem from parts moving slightly during an onion skin pass, as that's the only time I've seen it happen, on several different cnc routers. I've noticed that compression bits with a high up shear can also cause this; that's why I switched to the mortise tips.

I don't see any practical way to avoid using tabs, small parts in random nests will always want to move. The only improvement I can see here would be to add ramping tabs to avoid burns if the cut has to be top quality.
Bryan Sullivan
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Re: new feature request

Post by Bryan Sullivan »

Not saying that I don't like the idea of a roughing pass; sounds great, but we cut a lot of melamine and haven't had any lip issues. We tab all of our small parts like stretchers and toe kicks, so you still have to rout off the tabs but I haven't noticed any lips as the parts generally don't move

I'm not suggesting a roughing pass, but rather the option to climb cut on all double passes. If I climb cut double passed parts, there is no lip, but I can't climb cut the single pass parts as the cut quality suffers. I don't think the part moves because there is a .03 skin holding it on the first pass, and it is only cutting .03 thickness on the second pass. Anyone I have asked has attributed this to bit flex. I mis typed, we are using a 3/8 mortise compression 7/8cl, 3/16upcut. Does a 12" x 18" shelf get tabbed on your machine?
Daniel Odom
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Re: new feature request

Post by Daniel Odom »

Not unless it's next to a part that does get tabbed; as long as the spoil board doesn't have a lot of cut channels the part holds still and there is no lip. Try width 6 and length 12 in your tab settings; this works for my parts but you may have to play with it.

Wouldn't a rough pass with the option of climb/conventional and an increment to offset (which could be zero if you just want to climb cut the small parts) do the same thing? I suppose bit flex could be another factor; it may flex on your first pass then not flex at all on the onion skin pass; maybe increase your skin thickness to half the thickness of the material if you don't want to double pass all parts.
Bryan Sullivan
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Re: new feature request

Post by Bryan Sullivan »

Wouldn't a rough pass with the option of climb/conventional and an increment to offset (which could be zero if you just want to climb cut the small parts) do the same thing?


Absolutely, this would be above and beyond a simple climb on double pass!
I suppose bit flex could be another factor; it may flex on your first pass then not flex at all on the onion skin pass; maybe increase your skin thickness to half the thickness of the material if you don't want to double pass all parts.
That's a great idea Daniel, I will also try the tabs.Thanks for your input.
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Re: new feature request

Post by Jeremy Schiffer »

I purchased a 1/2" compression bit for outline cuts specifically to try to address this issue. It didn't help. A 50% "skin" on double pass parts will likely help, but that kinda defeats the purpose of the double pass in the first place, since small parts are more likely to move with a thicker skin.

For the time being, we keep a Surform rasp at the edgebander, and as these parts come through, a couple of swipes with that pretty much takes care of the lip. Still, would be nice to have the CNC take care of that.......
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