2d Contour Tabs Being Cut By Passes + Too Close To Corners! Please automate for ease

[craptree4NU47]

Hi all! 

Being able to use tabs to help hold down parts is very important for most of us. Some of us (especially wood working CNC operators) nest parts next to each other by the size of our tool. For busy projects tabs can number in their hundreds so its vital to have some kind of automation for their placement. 

Although the 2d Contour tool has a tab function with automatic placement by distance or number, its pretty useless.

• Tabs can be automatically placed right in a corner, so its only half on the piece (circled in red)
• Tabs are not mirrored onto adjacent parts so that subsequent passes cut needed tabs off (blue arrow showing bulk of this issue)
• No option to define number of tabs per segment
• Tabs placed outside of stock (green underline)

All of this results in the need to spend a lot of time manually placing tabs. Its absolutely soul destroying and very boring! 

Is there anything in the pipeline to see the tabs feature improved? If not, how best to make a feature request (if this isn't the right place?)

Thanks!

Riz

Live copy of file here

https://a360.co/3qVsdhF

[seth.madore]

Yeah, looks like there's more than a few things to take a look at here.

Question; for your "blue arrow" issue, would you expect there to be a certain gap between tabs, or would you expect one tab to solve for two parts? (the former should be possible, the latter...I have my doubts)

[craptree4NU47]

Hi Seth thanks for your reply

If we have 2 bodies next to each other, as in the blue section (let's say part A and B), we need a way for cut passes on part B to not destroy the tabs that were machined on part A.

This could be

1. with one tab solving for both part A and B (I imagine that's hard)
2. Tabs on part B 'magnetically' gravitating to tabs on part A during automatic placement - this could be iterated part to part. Effectively the result would be the same as option 1, but maybe easier to implement?
3. A way to protect tabs on part A from passes on part B, or more generally put, protecting existing tabs from passes during machining in the same operation. This ideally would additionally need something to stop seperate tabs on part A and B being too close to each other and becoming messy

Hope that's clear! 

Thanks for your time

Riz

[jeffescott]

Seems like a web type tool would help.    Create sketch.  Create web lines.   Based on stock outline. Tag tabs as exposed areas.  Provide select tab move or delete option

speeds entry speeds clean up ensures support

[craptree4NU47]

Thanks for your reply. I am not familiar with the web tool but will check it out.

Could you elaborate a little further?

Would I need to use the web tool to manually draw all tabs as parts of solid bodies and then machine them, or is your solution more automated. Does it still use the tabs feature in the 2d contour machining tool?

Best

Riz