I'm a noob, but with help from people on this forum and other peoples Q&A I was able to make a foam inlay for in a case.
Then I devided the foam inlay in 4 layers and made a new part from those.
So far, so good..
The last step was to export the top of those 4 layers as .dwg files so that they could be cut out by a machine.
I made a new sketch on the top surface of each layer and used 'projected geometry' to draw all the planned cuts in this new sketch. I have to adjust the thickness of some of the foam cutouts and glue it back in to make different levels of depth in one level. So there are more planned cuts than just lines on the top of the sketch.
Either way, I could do it and ended up with 4 .dwg files (one for each layer) with all the lines on them that needed to be cut.
After all the work, and finally being my projects turn to be cut, the water cutter wrote me the message that the .dwg files were no good, because: they consisted out of points and non-joined lines. The different lines didn't seem to be connected..
I have since googled, experimented and lord knows what. But couldn't both see what he meant and neither find any solution to the problem.
I hope I could explain my problem well enough for you all to understand and really hope that there is a solution for this.
Thanks in advance for all te help!
Squawk
(Attached is the .ipt file of the top layer and the .dwg file I made from it.)
Solved! Go to Solution.
Solved by Curtis_Waguespack. Go to Solution.
Hi Squawk,
Squawk wrote:
1.... how do I delete the original line under the newly drawed line without/instead of deleting the newly drawed line?
....I had to use the 'start - end - radius' option of the arc feature, because the 3-point didn't give me the correct result.
In AutoCAD
Note that since you're working with foam you can likely get a way with less preciseness than if you were working with some other material. Often when I'm putting the arcs back in I don't worry about them being tangent, or being the exact radius that the originals were, etc. because foam tolerances are pretty large, and since the material itself gives, it's pretty forgiving.
Squawk wrote:
2.And also, why if I draw such an arc (or any line) in AutoCAD, will it not automatically be a polyline?
AutoCAD creates objects as different entity types for all kinds of reasons. So basically that is just the way it is. Rather than using the ARC command you could use the POLYLINE command and use the Arc option within it, then the Arc would be created as a polyline. But I find for what you're doing it's just as easy to create simple arcs, and then use PEDIT (polyline edit) with the JOIN option to create the profiles.
Squawk wrote:
3.How do I turn the circle in a polyline?
You don't need to. The circle is a closed loop geometry, so the waterjet software can create the G-Code from it, as is.
I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor AutoCAD pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com
Curtis, Steve, Blair and Mcgyvr, thank you so much for your help and patience!
I was able to complete this mission because of you guys!
Much appreciated!!
For foam layer 2, I'm facing another problem..
How can I create a new arc's in such a way that they cooincide with the original red arc's?
I've tried '3-point' arc, but unlike the vertical ones (now white), the horizontal ones did not jump to a green cross in the middle of the origial arc to make an excact same one. I can't make them to jump to the middle..
In Inventor this was easy as you could select the first point, the last point and then adjust the third point (center) to be where you wanted it, changing the shape of the arc.
Never mind.. I used a different arc option that I could overdraw the original arc with.
It's foam and doesn't have to be 0.001mm accurate.. 🙂
np, I had seen you mentioned troubles with the arc command you found previously and I was going to suggest there are others as you have found.
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