Add Part Clearance

[Jeff Sallows]

I'm curious if there is a way that I can eliminate the .5" default part clearance to 0"? What I am looking to do is save some time on drilling some holes in my drawer fronts by stacking say 3 fronts in the G902 corner opposed to 1 at a time. I was thinking I could create a .DXF File That was the height of 3 drawer fronts stacked, and the exact width, and do it that way, but I would still like to know if there is a macro file or something I can edit to change part clearance.

[Todd Miller]

Jeff,
I do not recommend this! If you want to cut them faster I would use a drill press. Or if all of your drawer fronts are the same size, with the same boring specs, write a looped program with a pause (M0) that bores the holes. Then indexes out away from the part, (M0)pauses, change your parts, and then start the program again.

I assume that the .5 default part clearence you are refering to is the retract height set up in the control nesting "Settings" area? But this is based on a .75 material thickness, Not the 2.25 material thickness you will have.

Why I do not recommend this........
Holding the parts down will be an issue.
You would need a tool with at least a 2.25 cut length.
The system was not designed to do that.
You could hurt yourself

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you are going to attempt this action, THM is not liable for any harm you may inflict on yourself or the machine. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Glenn Van Reason]

Todd, I think Jeff means to put each drawer front on the bed next to each other not on top of each other, you don't want to drill the holes all the way through the drawer fronts. Part clearance is the distance between parts in the X-Y plane.

Jeff you could adjust your dxf file to subtract the 0.5 measurement for the second, third hole etc which would take care of the fact that you have the drawers hard up against each other. Going further from this you should be able to make a cnc file that would accept the parameters of your drawer fronts and plot out your holes on the machine. So in effect you run the file and get prompted atthe start for the usual spoilboard thickness and then also the drawer dimensions and number of drawers. A simple program would then lay out the hole pattern.

[Jeff Sallows]

Glenn thanks for the response. I haven't done any creating of my own .cnc files, how would I go about creating a file as you are suggesting?

[Glenn Van Reason]

Hi Joe, sorry for the delay, weekend over now lol...if you haven't had any experience writing cnc files then I would not recommend it. Someone who has a machine on the forum may be able to help out if you can give them what your after. Or I might suggest checking out the G-Code manual that came with the Thermwood as to what it involved.

You can write cnc code in any text editor, as long as you save it with a .cnc prefix. You then load this on the controller.
NOTE: YOU CAN DAMAGE YOUR MACHINE IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING WRITING CODE.