Door Tooling

[Kerry Fullington]

Neville,

Can you not take the door derived from a cabinet back and take it to the Part Editor Contour and create as many tool paths as you need (assigning specific tooling to each path) then constrain those tool paths so you can re-size this door in batch cabinets or does the router try to model these tool paths instead of using the specific tools you have chosen?

Kerry

[Damon Nabors]

Kerry,

The problem is, at the controller you can either "model" or use "custom" tooling. If you model the door, you are stuck making a door that will tie up the machine most of the day. A normal raised panel door will take around 20 to 30 minutes per door. The kitchens we are doing around here that I would consider using an MDF Door on have around 25 doors per kitchen. That would take on average 10.41 hours to machine. If you use custom tools, you have to tell the controller which TWO tools you want to use. One interior and One exterior. It is hard to make a raised panel door with one interior tool, so you have to move the exterior tool inwards and treat it as an interior tool. Now you can use one tool for the frame profile and the other tool to create the panel. This is a lot faster than modeling but now you have rounded corners rather than mitered corners. Plus you don't have the outside profile now. So you would have to write another program to do the outside edge. It is just as fast to take the doors to the shaper and route them manually by the time you place each individual door back on the machine and run a separate operation.

I can understand Neville's frustration, when I had my demo they made MDF Doors, and five piece raised panel doors. Not having run a CNC before and not knowing the correct questions to ask, I was of the assumption that those MDF Doors got created in E-Cabinets, not panelmetrics or some other software. It is a little bit of a blow when your budget is maxed out getting the machine only to find out that you need to spend another $10K if you want to be able to make the MDF Doors. That is after you have received the machine and your reading the book trying to figure out how they did that in the demo only to find out some other software was being used. If you read all the brochures and information about MDF Doors, it can be a little misleading.

I did purchase Artcam though, I found a software package out there that the doors can be created with and then sent to artcam for the toolpath to be written. I have not purchased it yet but I am considering it. It is around $2k. I just have to ask myself in today economy how many more thousands of dollars I want to spend.

I am not a computer programmer so I don't know the answer, but how difficult would it be to just add the option of 2 or 3 extra interior tools? If they could do that, it would be a lot quieter in the OUTBACK.

[Kerry Fullington]

Damon,

I understand that you can only choose two tool paths with the mdf doors in the door editor but if you are using a cabinet back say out of mdf I can take it into the Part editor and create as many tool paths as I want. I can then assign a separate tool to each path. It was my understanding that if the controller did not recognize the tool assigned to a path it would try to model it but if it recognizes the tool it would use that tool.

The squaring of the corners might be a problem using a back.

Kerry

[Damon Nabors]

If you are cutting a pocket or something like that, not problem. If you are using your profile tools from ecab, you have to load that part into the profile modeler first and choose MODEL or CUSTOM. I am sure there is a work around and you could trick the machine into doing most anything, but the bottom line comes down to time invested, and waisted material. It would just be nice to be able to draw up the door and cut it out. I guess it goes back to the old saying "Having your cake and eating it too".

[Neville Bastian]

Damon and Kerry,
Not sure about the cake issue but I feel I have a Ferrari with a 2 speed powerglyde auto.
I'm having to resort to 4 year old software with issues to run the 2008 Thermwood.
With the Economy outlook I too feel reluctant to spend a lot on software when just making payments will be interesting.

Kerry believe me you can't do more than one pass on the centre of the door unless you model. Then you can do hundreds.
The issue will be even with being able assign a different tool to each pass you still have rounded corners in your frame setup. The idea is to make it look like a 5 piece door.

Oh well its Monday here so off to slay a few dragons

Regards

Neville

[Michael RA Greschuk]

Is there a way to add an outside profile to a door in the part editor using the cabinet back method??
Thanks,
Mike

[Gary Puckett]

Neville,


I am confused I had Damon make a arched vallance out of MDF with raised panels and beleave me it look great no rounded corners. It looked like it was assembled as a 5 piece door here is a picture

[Damon Nabors]

Gary,
I used a 1/16 ball nose to clean those corners up. That valance took a little over an hour to make modeling it out. That is the problem. These machines need to be making over a hundred dollars an hour to be profitable. If we could program the doors to be used with custom tooling and then be able to take that small ball nose and clean up the corners, that piece could have been made in maybe 10 minutes and YOUR price would have been much cheaper because it did not tie up the machine so long. The modeling feature is a WONDERFUL tool, it just take a long time to make anything. On one of a kind pieces that you might not use that profile again, the time is justified. On the other hand, if you are making MDF Doors on a large scale, The time it takes to model out a set of doors can kill you. It is just as cheap to outsource them and let the machine be cutting cabinet parts. That is what I do, and I have been asked before why I outsource the MDF Doors when I have such a GREAT Machine. It's all about the clock, and productivity. I am not complaining so don't misunderstand, the program is a good program. I am sure in time it will be a better program. I am just voicing some improvements that would help out tremendously.

[Gary Puckett]

Damon,


I did have a little bit of cnc experience so my point being is you rough out the raise panel with a standard bit or one you had made, you do a tool change and run the 1/16 bit to clean up the corners along with a 1/32 deep dust cut to blend everything.

Does the machine do an automatic tool change or do you have to program a block stop and do it manually?

Gary

[Damon Nabors]

Ours has a auto tool changer. You can order the Router with or without. I can not imagine changing the tools every time it wants to make a tool change.

[Neville Bastian]

Hi Damon,

The modeller is a fantastic program. Maybe if was enhanced a bit it could use bigger cutters or even the correct cutter (ogee or V cutter) to jack up the speed.When you watch it go through its routine you think if I was doing this I would be grabbing the 16mm straight cutter and getting rid of that bulk material here instead of using that 9.5mm ball cutter.
If it asked the question like part of your program has a shape 95% close to what you have designed to do shall I use that cutter or get it 100%? This would result in one pass instead of 50 to get that shape.
I know the true shape optimisers are not born equal. Could the modeller be the same?

Regards

Neville

[David Hall]

OK, I'm sure the last thing some of you want to hear is another work-around but I'll throw it out there anyhow.

Here's a way to get "Tool set" doors, as Forrest calls them, out of ecabs and a Thermwood router.

First let me repeat an earlier point: you can use the "exterior" profile tool as a second "interior" profile tool by applying an additional "inward" offset when you set-up the tool. So each MDF door can have two tools positioned as you need them.

If you want more than two tools per door, create another door using the second and third tools. (I'll call it door2)
Assuming your ecabs job is using door1, create CNC as usual.
Make a copy of your ecabs job (Job2), change the doors to door2 (select all cabs, right-click menu-->Adjust cabinet features--> change --> doors)
Create CNC for Job2.

At the controller select only the Door material and create code for Job1, I would check "no outline cuts" on the settings page for this job.
Load job 2, select only the door material, and Create the code for Job2, this time with outline cuts on.
Run the code for job1, sheet1. "Forget" to change the sheet, and run the code for job2, sheet1.

This gets real messy (as if it was clean to begin with) with batch jobs because there's no "change doors" feature on a batch job.

And yes, I'd be looking over my operator's shoulder during the whole process.

Regards,
Dave

[Damon Nabors]

Will they nest the same if you are trying to nest job 1 and then job2?