Drill Hole Issues

[Rachel Meehan]

Hi,
We have a CS43 CNC.
We have 2 questions (a lot actually but 2 for now )
We have just started using the CNC in the last 6 weeks so we are still learning what we are doing.

We have a 5mm drill in our tools, and its diameter is set to 5mm in the CNC machine.
We then have a 5mm hole for adjustable shelves set in ecabs.
When this action goes through to the CNC, the machine decides to use a 3.18 cutter instead of the 5mm drill to do this action.
We can't work out why, any help on why that is would be appreciated.

The other questions is, we just cut up a job including lock dados. The lock dados we have made up include a blind dado and just a 4mm screw hole in between the dados. We do have a 4mm drill in our tool group, so that's why some of them are working.
For an unknown reason, the holes just did not get drilled on some of the pieces in this job. Some of them did get drilled.
We have used this pattern before with no problems, and the pattern is definitely applied to the cabinets.
There was also some 4mm handle holes that didn't all get drilled either, but some of those did. it seems very random.
This job file is attached as is a picture of the missing holes.

Sam Kilada trade.zip

Zipped folder ecabs job file

(5.82 MiB) Downloaded 1842 times

Thanks,
Rachel

[Clint Buechlein]

Rachel,

For your first question regarding the 5mm drill, make sure the 5mm drill is in the operation list before the 3.18 mm cutter. In general your tools should be ordered from largest to smallest. Control Nesting starts at operation 1 in Tooling and checks to operation 50. As soon as the Control Nesting finds a tool that can do the job it stops looking. It does not find the "best" tool to do the job, just the first it finds.

To answer your second question, I'd need a few files. The first would be an export from Control Nesting, and the other is the actual CNC code created for the parts pictured above. You can create an export by opening Control Nesting, making sure the problem job is loaded, choose File, and then Export. The next dialog is asking where you want to save the export. Choose the location, follow the prompts, and email the export in with the code.

You can either post the files or email them to cabinets@thermwood.com. I would recommend emailing them in the event I get tied up, others here can have access to the files.

-Clint-

[Mark McCallum]

Thanks Clint.
Okay. we will keep that in mind and try changing the tool order.
Out of curiosity I have to ask the dumb question.
Why doesn't it look for the best tool?

Having said that, Why then wouldn't it be best to load the drills into the group settings first?
If you or others know to save us guessing and learning what others already know, any input would be handy.
We have emailed to the email suggested.
Thanking you
Mark

[Brad McIntosh]

The General Guidelines are:

1. DRILL ONLY (True Drill) Tools: These are ALWAYS at the top of the list and must only be defined to DRILL. Order of diameter is NOT important as the diameter has to match exactly to be selected.

2. ROUTER TOOLING: Always AFTER the DRILL ONLY tools. Should be ordered by diameter – largest to smallest (descending). Control Nesting will then use the largest available tool that can do the operation.

[Mark McCallum]

Thanks for that Brad
We have reordered / reorganised the group and will give that a go on the next job.

[Mark McCallum]

An update here is that the problem has been identified, But as clint says in the quote below they need the steps to reproduce it.

We haven't worked it out either, but are saving more after changes to the cabinets file rather than changing without saving.
If anyone else has any insights it could help track it down.

Quote "The two cabinets that have an issue have lost their hole patterns somehow. By copying the center cabinet and pasting it, returning to batch keeping changes, returning back to cabinet editor and rebuilding the newly pasted cabinet I can get it to lose hole patterns as well. However, what I cannot do is get eCabinets to do it from scratch. What is your exact step by step process to creating an assembly like that? I we can reproduce it from a standard cabinet we can correct the issue, but we need to know how to get to that point.
Regards,
Clint

And

When I regenerate these the two cabinets in the attached screenshot with red arrows pointing to them, they lose all hole patterns. I've sent the cabinets to the software engineers to see as to why that is happening. If you send the cabinets to CNC as they sit in the job, all the holes stay. But if you regenerate them in any way, including changing material thickness on the way to CNC, the holes disappear.

I'll let you know as soon as I hear from the software engineers." Quote



Thanks
Mark