Nest large to small outside in

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Forrest Chapman
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Nest large to small outside in

Post by Forrest Chapman »

I have the ability in some other software to nest the larger parts on the outside edges of the sheet with the smaller parts on the inside. This greatly reduces the risk of them moving. Would be a nice addition.

Another nice feature is a single entry outline pass so after skinning the parts the bit sets down once and steps over between each part until its done. This reduces cutting time.

Forrest
Mark McCallum
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Re: Nest large to small outside in

Post by Mark McCallum »

Hi Forest.
I can see where you are coming from.

I don't know if this is a useful thought or not.

In addition to using the tabbing and skinning settings, To help small pieces from moving we nest, and if the small pieces are near the edges, is to select all the pieces, (use control A to select everything on the sheet) click on move constrained and sort of pull out all the pieces,
This pulls them away from the corner, the edges, or the most used part of the waste board, leaving some extra material to help prevent movement.
This helps with the technique that, (I think it was Jeremy) , suggested where he suggests to turn off the dust extraction to leave the dust compacted within the outline cut.
On the edges it then gives somewhere for the dust to compact and help prevent movement.
It's pretty quick and easy to do and doesn't use any more material than was already being used.

A feature that I would like in control nesting is to be able to rotate the whole nested sheet 180degrees.
Everything is nested from 0,0 and that corner of the waste board cops the most wear and tear and I get more pieces moving on that corner than anywhere else.
If we were able to select perhaps every second sheet in the nest and rotate it 180 degrees, it would even out wear and tear on the wasteboard and reduce the amount of flycutting.

Just a thought
Mark
Forrest Chapman
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Re: Nest large to small outside in

Post by Forrest Chapman »

Hey Mark, tabbing is a great tool if you are doing a ton of little repeat parts and we will often give those a larger collar as well but on regular cabinet parts it just makes for extra work. I'll post a video soon of how the single entry outline handles parts. I also roll around corners so the machine doesn't slow as much.

Forrest
Mark McCallum
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Re: Nest large to small outside in

Post by Mark McCallum »

Hi Forrest
I am always interested in how other users do things and the reasoning behind what they do.
It would be nice if we had a bigger user base of the 41, 43 and 45's and Ecabinets on the forum sharing ideas, like it was 5 or more years ago.

Quote "Hey Mark, tabbing is a great tool if you are doing a ton of little repeat parts and we will often give those a larger collar as well but on regular cabinet parts it just makes for extra work. I'll post a video soon of how the single entry outline handles parts. I also roll around corners so the machine doesn't slow as much."

See, in that one response I will now have to re look at collars, I think that only applies to job level nesting and not per size of part,
I would be interested in what you mean by "Roll around corners" and "single entry outline" as well.

Yes, tabs are good but I wish that they would snap in the middle, we use a Stanley or craft knife to scribe the tabs in the middle of the tab to try and get them to break away from the pieces and tidy up with a flush trim hand held trimmer, but often a chip seems to get onto the face of one of the pieces. 95% of our work is melamine faced board, plywood is not that common in our neck of the woods.

Sometimes I wonder if it would be possible to have the tabs a bit sturdier but have a final pass with a smaller tool. (Not that Thermwood appears to be looking for any ideas)

So a standard (for us) 3/8 outline cut with a 1/4 or 1/8 to thin out the tabs in the center of the tab would then (in my untested theory) make a nice clean break away from the melamine face edge, for us it would be worth the time sacrifice but if it lessens the amount of redo's it would be worth the extra machine time, maybe not for other users.
I have found priorities are different for everyone.
Forrest Chapman
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Re: Nest large to small outside in

Post by Forrest Chapman »

Larger collars are only practical if you have a few small parts say in a scrap material. If you have multiple sheets then it can greatly reduce the yield. Nesting the smaller parts towards the interior does the same thing in giving it some extra material around the part.

Roll around outside corners means the bit doesn't stop traveling at the corner to change direction but only slows down to radius around the corner. This reduces cut time and in some cases the likelihood of part movement. I'm sure you can find examples of this on Youtube.

"Single entry outline" is a phrase that I've coined that sounds similar to the "single pass tenon" cut that Thermwood already has. The ability to do this is available in another software under a different name. After the parts are skinned individually the bit goes back to the first part and sets down one time going around the parts partially stepping over to the next part and continuing until it is back where it started and all the parts are cut free then it retracts. This reduces the machine time in lifting up and repositioning for each part. It also greatly reduces part movement.

Forrest
Mark McCallum
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Re: Nest large to small outside in

Post by Mark McCallum »

Thanks Forrest.

All interesting points of view.

Software packages seem to have different techniques and advantages and the programing guys always seem to be tweaking the control software so we could be lucky there. :D

I think Thermwood does a lot of background stuff that we only see when it hits us.
Personally I'm wondering how much further they are going to push ecabs or if it's close to the end of its development phase.
Michel Leblanc
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Re: Nest large to small outside in

Post by Michel Leblanc »

Forrest Chapman wrote:I have the ability in some other software to nest the larger parts on the outside edges of the sheet with the smaller parts on the inside. This greatly reduces the risk of them moving. Would be a nice addition.

Another nice feature is a single entry outline pass so after skinning the parts the bit sets down once and steps over between each part until its done. This reduces cutting time.

Forrest
do you know if any work has been done with these features? I completely agree with this, especially with the bigger parts on the outside.
another thing that would be useful that I can't seem to figure out if it can be done or not is to end the cut at the midway point of the longest side of each part.

I always have an issue with parts moving when the small part is on the edge of the sheet and as soon as the part is disconnected from the rest of the sheet
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