Hey Guys,
I am about to delve into profile modeling and mdf doors. I have a couple doors designed in the profile modeler and a couple cabinets with these doors on them to start. My question is if any one is cutting these in production, by that I mean sending a kitchen or casework project to the machine through e-cabs. I have 0 experience with this and would appreciate any help. Do you have to filter the doors/drawer fronts out and then run them through the profile modeler one at a time? Will they nest then? Sorry for the I am sure ignorant questions, but trying to shorten the learning curve as I dont have any more days in the week or hours in a day to work!!!Also, if a person was to buy the cutters for mdf doors, how does the router run them, say you want a different cutter for the rail/frame and one for the panel, is that possible? Thanks for any help/heads up
Mike, I have run some custom door nested with jobs. You won't have to filter them out. To model them in a nest you will need to set up your tools in the profile modeler. I'm sure you know setting the step over smaller will give you the best finish but will take longer to run. Rn will use whatever tools you set as default in the modeler. Don't be surprised if it takes a few minutes to write the code and do not try to graph the sheet (f3,f6 I think) every time I have tried it will lock up. As far a custom tool e-cab will only let you use one tool for the cope and panel and one for the profile, but there has been talk about some more options in the future. You can use display panels for this and set the tool paths with the part editor but a cad program would be much faster. Be sure to use double refined board Hope this helps Good luck, Joe
Thanks Joe,
I have set up a couple mdf doors in the door/drawer desingner, and then applied these to a couple cabinets. They seem to resize correctly. So your saying if I use these doors and drawer fronts on cabinets for a job,I can write the twd file and this can be sent straight to control nesting and will nest the doors/drawer fronts and do the profile modeling?I would have thought anything that would have profile modeling would have to have run through profile modeler at machine to get code, and at that I see no way to nest,or write code other than one at a time.
Also with custom tools you are stuck with the frame and panel being the same cut, is that correct?How about squaring up the corner with a custom tool? Can you get the profile modeler to come back in with ballnose and clean it up for more of a 5 pc look? I beleive I could live with a mdf door for paint jobs, but not if it looked like a MDF door......
Thanks for your help, and any one else who cares to jump in on this topic..I know there is other software for mdf doors available and I do beleive thermwood sells it, but I am hoping e-cabs can get me by for the once a month paint job, currently I use 5 pc popular for paint and am considering the mdf option for doors,curved valances,misc.
Mike, That is correct, just nest the cabinet and it will carve the doors automatically (see the notes below from the Thermwood site.)
NOTE ON PROFILING IN NEST: Profiling & MDF Door/Drawer Front operations will use the default tooling set up in Profile Modeller. A future version will allow the ability to alter tool groups and custom tooling per region on parts by integrating a connection to Profile Modeller from Control Nesting.
Version 5.0 and higher of Control Nesting has the ability to perform Profiling and Rental Carvings in the nest. Profiling includes MDF Doors. The Profiling is an integration with eCabinet Systems and the Profile Modeller. Carvings are an integration with the Thermwood CNC Rental program.
To have both the Rental Carving and Profiling ability, you must have THM (Windows 2000 system version - 5.05, Build 9 or higher) OR (Windows XP Pro system version - 6.1.0.4 or higher) installed. To request a control upgrade click here:
If you want to use multiple custom tools you will have to use the part editor to create the tool paths then use the modeler, set tools to custom and cut each one individually. I have done this and the only drawback is all the tool changes, 3-4 per door.
