Waterjet controller Vs Autocad DXF

RevK · Sep 27, 2016

To start off, im using an A&V waterjet and autocad LT 2016. For whatever reason this controller always wants to argue with my dxf files. Acad says its a closed contour 2d polyline, Controller shows it as an open contour.. So I explode the polyline into a series of small tangent arcs.. Now the controller crawls when cutting.

With all that being said sometimes it takes my dxf files just fine(with polylines) and life is good. but why is it that 60% of the time it won't like it? does anyone have a similar problem with a solution? it would be very time consuming to go back and redraw most of these parts but it might be my only option.

Hopefully some decent nesting software will come my way with a post processor so i can skip the controller creating the code.

KilrB · Sep 27, 2016

This seems to be a universal problem with waterjet controllers that require a .dxf file.

It is the same with both Flow and Omax controllers.

I despise them.

This never happened with the Ingersoll and Burny controllers that used g-code.

Some good suggestions were made here:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cad-cam/art-dxf-problems-324429/

TiniJet · Sep 28, 2016

Have you tried IGEMS ? It has always been a good solution for us and for our customers...

JNieman · Sep 28, 2016

I've never had a problem with Flow software, myself.

The only times I've had an issue is when I had multiple entities overlapping (use the OVERKILL command in AutoCAD to fix this) or if I had a closed polyline that only closed because it looped back on itself in a weird way that wasn't obvious.

I like to use polylines because it's easy to know whether or not you have gaps, but if your software has something like Flow does... you can 'examine drawing' or something similar, and it'll highlight or mark your gaps, then you can just join them with whatever segment is needed to close it.

Could you possibly have segments at different Z-heights after exploding it? I know you said it's a 2d pline but... just trying to think of other weird things that could happen.

RevK · Sep 29, 2016

I use overkill frequently, I always verify im on the Z-zero(wish LT had flatten) and yes, i like polylines for ensuring a closed profile.. but my issue is, per CAD, I DO have a closed profile. Take it out to the machine, and what do you know, its not. The controller does show me it isn't and even warns me before i cut but i can't believe that they don't agree. My only step is to redraw in a different drawing or explode and watch the machine do whatever it wants (cuts in the most bizarre order). I really appreciate all the feed back, now i'm tasked with another choir that involves manually building a bridge in all my part nest. So i have to trace everything in a specific order, otherwise the controller will jump everywhere.

JNieman · Sep 29, 2016

RevK said:
I use overkill frequently, I always verify im on the Z-zero(wish LT had flatten) and yes, i like polylines for ensuring a closed profile.. but my issue is, per CAD, I DO have a closed profile. Take it out to the machine, and what do you know, its not. The controller does show me it isn't and even warns me before i cut but i can't believe that they don't agree. My only step is to redraw in a different drawing or explode and watch the machine do whatever it wants (cuts in the most bizarre order). I really appreciate all the feed back, now i'm tasked with another choir that involves manually building a bridge in all my part nest. So i have to trace everything in a specific order, otherwise the controller will jump everywhere.

While I've never had the not-closed pline issue... man I've had to do that last part, cussing the whole time. I feel your pain.

Mike1974 · Sep 29, 2016

This may not be related, but I used to import dxf files into an old version of Bobcad for our wire edm. Sometimes there is a tolerance issue between machine and cad. I know the older charmilles would alarm out if your IJK did not macth 100%, adn I think the charmilles read to 5 decimals, sometimes the difference would literally be .00001 difference between start and end points and it would not run.

alexhawker · Sep 29, 2016

Do you have a rhino license? Flows software has no issues with my files when they come from real CAD but anything from illustrator is a bear. I open all of those files in Rhino and export to dxf with the "cam imperial" scheme. It doesn't come through perfect always, but it's usually minimal manual cleanup if any.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

robert123 · Sep 30, 2016

What version .dxf are you using? I always save as the oldest version .dxf (2012 I think) that I can, and I don't have any issues with FlowPath.

JNieman · Sep 30, 2016

robert123 said:
What version .dxf are you using? I always save as the oldest version .dxf (2012 I think) that I can, and I don't have any issues with FlowPath.

I forgot about that. I do it, now without thinking about it. But that's the same I do. I think I go as far back as 2000. If I save it as 2007 or higher, it seems like the Flow software doesn't like it - might be because our Flowmaster seat is pretty damn old.

But yea, I've always had better luck with saved-down DXFs.

rcoope · Oct 1, 2016

I have never had a problem with importing in Omax either. If you use Open it can have trouble with particularly splines, but you use "import from other CAD" which is actually a very powerful engine for importing all kinds of file formats including old and difficult DXFs

RevK · Oct 12, 2016

JNieman said:
While I've never had the not-closed pline issue... man I've had to do that last part, cussing the whole time. I feel your pain.

It was less than desirable... I had 15 drawings that had to have that done.

robert123 said:
What version .dxf are you using? I always save as the oldest version .dxf (2012 I think) that I can, and I don't have any issues with FlowPath.

I've tried with every version Autocad will let me save with no difference that i could notice.

rcoope said:
I have never had a problem with importing in Omax either. If you use Open it can have trouble with particularly splines, but you use "import from other CAD" which is actually a very powerful engine for importing all kinds of file formats including old and difficult DXFs

No splines, converted all to polylines even tried exploding it and having just lines and tangent arcs. no luck without a redraw.

We have FastCam with FastNest but i haven't got my hands on it yet... Hoping that solves that. I would really like to have some software that will post a logical cutting path instead of this random crap the controller spits out. Best i can tell the controller reads the file and cuts the way i drew it. Which is beyond crazy IMO.

accutron71 · Oct 13, 2016

I just had the same problem after years of doing all sorts of thing with dxf's on a co2 laser & a laser marker with no problems. First check your dxf file size. You should see kb's not mb's. I like overkill as already stated. If you have express tools loaded try modify/flatten. save the file & see if the file gets smaller. You can also try to group the segments but that didn't do much for me. Finally I found the PEDIT command. Play with this & it will become your best friend. Exploding the file makes your nc code program all the x,y coordinates between all those nodes making a huge nc file that cant buffer fast enough at the machine. You can pm me & I would be more than happy to look at the dxf.

TFPace · Oct 13, 2016

accutron71 said:
I just had the same problem after years of doing all sorts of thing with dxf's on a co2 laser & a laser marker with no problems. First check your dxf file size. You should see kb's not mb's. I like overkill as already stated. If you have express tools loaded try modify/flatten. save the file & see if the file gets smaller. You can also try to group the segments but that didn't do much for me. Finally I found the PEDIT command. Play with this & it will become your best friend. Exploding the file makes your nc code program all the x,y coordinates between all those nodes making a huge nc file that cant buffer fast enough at the machine. You can pm me & I would be more than happy to look at the dxf.

PEDIT is your friend

RevK · Oct 14, 2016

accutron71 said:
I just had the same problem after years of doing all sorts of thing with dxf's on a co2 laser & a laser marker with no problems. First check your dxf file size. You should see kb's not mb's. I like overkill as already stated. If you have express tools loaded try modify/flatten. save the file & see if the file gets smaller. You can also try to group the segments but that didn't do much for me. Finally I found the PEDIT command. Play with this & it will become your best friend. Exploding the file makes your nc code program all the x,y coordinates between all those nodes making a huge nc file that cant buffer fast enough at the machine. You can pm me & I would be more than happy to look at the dxf.

Yea, i use PEDIT all the time, gets rid of all those janky plines. I've ran plenty of CNC mills but this is my first waterjet and i just don't understand how this thing thinks.There is no looking ahead, there are only 4 Gcodes it uses (G00,G01,G02,G03). This is a windows based controller so i already don't like it (more or less a program on a windows computer). It has an autosort but it doesn't really work well. Im really looking forward to using some nesting software that can post out code so i can skip the conversion at the machine.

Search

Largest Manufacturing Technology Community on the Web

Search

Waterjet controller Vs Autocad DXF

RevK

Plastic

KilrB

Stainless

TiniJet

Plastic

JNieman

Titanium

RevK

Plastic

JNieman

Titanium

Mike1974

Diamond

alexhawker

Aluminum

robert123

Stainless

JNieman

Titanium

rcoope

Stainless

RevK

Plastic

accutron71

Plastic

TFPace

Stainless

RevK

Plastic

Similar threads