Curious where I went wrong in vCarve

Working on the profile cuts for a design that looks like this in DraftSight (an AutoCAD clone)
image

  • WHITE: Profile cuts
  • GREEN: Pocket cuts (not implemented in preview below)
  • YELLOW : V-bit cuts (not implemented in preview below)

… seemingly imports fine into vCarve - geometry is as expected …
image

… but I get the following when doing the profile toolpaths:

Dafuq? Its idea of what constitutes an inside cut is decidedly different from what one would expect.

Pockets don’t process because it claims the vectors aren’t connected.

Is vCarve doing something screwey with the geometry from the .DWG file?

Closed polylines? I’ve had a similar problem before.

Lines and arcs - I’ve yet to encounter g-code that likes plines and other complex geometry.

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Try joining to an open polyline. That’s my only suggestion without playing with it.

Plines work better - I can get it to do everything but the main worksurface, which is generating the following error:

Since I drew everything in 2D in DraftSight, the Z height is zero. The other profile cuts went A-OK so this is a tad confusing.

Hmmm. Does the tool clear all paths? I haven’t seen that error before, but it implies the selected bit doesn’t physically fit. Check the depths, sizes, and settings on your profile, ramps, and tabs.

I gave it all kinds of clearance on revised versions of the drawing. Going to have to play with it again tomorrow. I’m not above forcing the issue by generating a file with vectors that are nothing but tool paths…

Files are on the member drive under a directory with my name if you’re feeling exceptionally curious and/or generous. Timestamps should show the evolution along with the exasperation in the filenames.

The one named “kill me now polylines” was a bit far, hey?

(I’m kidding folks)

I’ll try and check it out tonight.

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I got it to work. Don’t ask, I don’t know.

Here’s what I speculate fixed it: using a 0.500 bit to cut a 0.500 internal radius was giving it a fit. I rebuilt the polyline with a 0.501 radius and separated the profiles more. I saved a VCarve file in the same directory, but forgot to save the dxf there. I’ll get to it later

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