Hey y'all.
Welcome to part three of my series on Vectric software titles for the absolute beginner.
Before we get started, let me just say that I am not endorsed nor sponsored...
...by Vectric Limited, or any other company.
I'm doing this series to assist the people who have never done anything like this before...
...and hopefully help you gain a little confidence in yourself and your abilities...
...when it comes to using this CAD/CAM software.
In this video, I'm going to introduce you to a few more semi-advanced tools...
...but we're going to keep it at a beginners level...
...in that we are going to create a simple project from beginning to end.
We'll start by creating a new file.
I've gone outside, and I found a piece of material that I want to use for this project...
...and that piece of material...
This is a single sided project, by the way...
The piece of material I have is 15 inches wide in X, and it's 13 inches tall in Y.
The thickness is 1/2 inch.
I'm using inches... I'm going to set my Z zero to the top surface of the material.
My XY datum position for laying out this project will be the center of the material.
I'm going to go ahead and accept everything else as it is.
So we've got our project set up.
For this project, I'm going to make a simple clock face.
I figure by associating this tutorial with a project that everybody can wrap their head around...
...we might make the use of some of these layout tools a little bit more realistic.
This just happens to be the size of the material I have.
What I want to do is, I want to cut a 12 inch square clock that I can see from across the room.
The first thing I'm going to do is go over here under Create Vectors...
...to Draw Rectangle.
I want to anchor the center of that rectangle on my zero zero...
...that is X zero, Y zero.
It's already selected for me...
...anchor the center of my rectangle on X zero Y zero.
For my corners, I want to use square outside corners.
I could also use a radiused corner if I chose....
...and I'd enter the radius here, be that 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch, 1 inch, whatever I'd like.
Or I could radius those corners to the inside as it shows right here.
And again, I would choose the radius... 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch, 1 inch, 2 inch, etc...
For this project, however, I'm going to go with a square corner, because I want to keep it simple.
Down here...
This rectangle is going to be the outside profile of the final project.
I would like to go with 12 inch by 12 inch square.
So that's the size of rectangle we're going to make.
We can go ahead and click on Create...
...and we see out here, now we've got a 12 inch by 12 inch square...
...centered on my X zero, Y zero.
I can go ahead and close that form.
I'm going to use simple dots. I will pocket out holes...
...and I'll glue pieces of dowel into those holes to indicate the hours...
...12, 1, 2, 3, etc...
I'm going to use a 3/8 inch dowel up here at 12, down here at 6, over here at 3, and over here at 9...
...and I'll use 1/4 inch dowels to mark the other times; 1, 2, 4, 5, etc...
So I'll start by drawing one circle to base everything else on.
So we'll come back over here under Create Vectors...
...we'll click on Draw Circle...
...and that opens up this form.
As you can see our choices are pretty limited.
I can select the center point - meaning, where I'm going to place the center of that circle.
I can select whether I'm going to enter a radius or a diameter...
...and I can enter what that radius or diameter will be.
I want to put the center point of this circle here on my X zero line...
...and that's already entered for me, so we're fine there.
...but I want it up here, close to the outside, without going too far out...
...I don't want to get out here on the edge.
So let's take a look at my cursor...
I've kind of got a set of crosshairs...
...and the X just underneath the crosshairs is reading 0.0 because I'm on my X zero line...
...and my Y has a reading right in there of about 5 inches.
I think I'm going call that a good place to start... so we'll look at X 0, Y 5...
...let me move up here a little bit more... yeah I think I'll stick with X 0, Y 5.
So I'll come back over here, and it's already there for me, by coincidence.
So that's where the center point of this 1/4 inch circle is going to go
I'll go ahead and click Create...
...and there we have our first circle at the 12 o'clock position.
Now I can close the form.
So I've got my 12 o'clock position marked.
Now what I'm going to do is create 11 more copies of that circle...
...evenly spaced around a full 360 degree circle.
The way I'll do that, is select this circle...
...then come over here under Offset and Layout...
...to this icon right here. Circular Copy - Create a Circular Array of Copies.
I'll click that icon, and it opens up this form.
You can see that the cursor around our circle has changed to the Transform and Move mode.
The Selected Object box gives me the size of my circle; 1/4 inch x 1/4 inch...
...and now I need to select the Rotation Center.
What this is, is I'm going make an array of copies...
...but what's the center point that array is going to be centered around?
I want that Rotation Center to be X zero, Y zero.
You'll notice it made this little symbol right here.
That's telling me that that's my Rotation Center...
...so all the copies I create will be based on this center point.
I want a total number of 12, to include the one that we've already drawn...
...and I'm going to use a total angle of 360 degrees in that circle.
We can get into some of these other choices at another time.
I'll go ahead and click Copy...
Then Close... then click off... and we can see we have 12 evenly spaced circles.
I did that because it's an easy way of placing these circles out here.
These are going to be 1/4 inch dowel, as I said.
My 12, 3, 6, and 9 are going to be 3/8 dowel...
...so I don't actually need these. I need to resize them.
The easiest way to do this, in this case is...
...yes I could go to each one individually and increase their size...
...but I'll just go ahead and select these 3 by selecting the first one...
...hold down shift, select this one, select this one...
...then tap Delete on my keyboard.
That leaves me with this one here...
...which I can then resize, then create a circular array of four dots.
So we'll go ahead and do that. I have it selected...
...we'll come over here under Transform Objects...
...and I'll click on that icon.
When this form opens up, I have relatively few options.
I'll keep the anchor point here in the center.
I need to make sure that Link X and Y is checked here.
With this checked, anything I enter here in the Width...
...or Percentage blanks will also be entered here or this percentage blank here...
...meaning it'll keep that circle a circle and keep it in proportion.
If this was unchecked...
...and I entered a new amount up here or down here...
...that would be the only axis that would be affected.
So it would change the shape.
I don't want to change the shape, I just want to change it to 3/8 of an inch...
...so I'll keep my Link X and Y checked.
Now I'll come up here and use one of the calculators built into the Vectric software again.
I can't remember what the decimal equivalent of 3/8 inch is off the top of my head...
...so I'll type in 3, front slash, 8, then tap the equals sign on my keyboard...
...and there we go.
I'll click Apply...
...then I can close this form, and I have a 3/8 inch circle here.
Now I need to go ahead and create the array to put one here, here, and here.
We'll go back down to Create a Circular Array...
...click on that icon...
...the size is correct...
...however I still want my rotation Center to be 0.0 in both X and Y.
I now only want to create 4 copies in total...
...around a 360 degree circle...
We'll click Copy...
...close that form...
...and there we go. I have a 3/8 inch circle here, here, here, and here.
Now I have one more circle to draw...
...and that's right in the center where my clock movement post is going to come through.
I've got my clock movement, I've measured the post, and I know that it's 3/8 inch...
...but I need to go a little bit bigger than that...
...so that threaded post will slip through there, without me having to hammer on it or press it through.
So I'll go back up here to Create Vectors...
...we'll draw another circle.
Again I want it at X zero, Y zero...
...and I want the diameter to be just a little bit larger than 3/8 inch.
Remembering from when I converted 3/8 just a second ago...
...I know it's .375, and I want to add about five thousandths to that...
...so I'll go + .005
...then tap the = button...
...so it's going to create a 0.38 inch diameter circle right here in the center.
Let's create it...
There it is.
Believe it or not, we have all of our vectors drawn and placed to make our clock face.
Now I'm going to introduce another tool that's used for simple convenience.
These holes here, here... all these 1/4 inch holes, and this center hole...
...are going to be drilled all the way through the material.
Because I have a limited supply of dowel...
...I'm actually going to cut some 3/8 inch plugs out of some material...
...that I have for these 3/8 inch holes here at my 12, 3, 6, and 9.
So I'm going to pocket these 3/8 inch into the material. I'm not going to drill them all the way through.
In order to do that...
...just for my convenience, I'm going to group all of these together...
...by selecting the first one...
...holding down shift...
...then select the others...
...then come over here under Edit Objects to this icon right here.
Group Selected Objects.
I'll click that icon and you'll notice that the vector changed from pink dotted lines...
...to a pink solid line, all the way around... all four of them.
Now I'll click off...
...and if I select one, I select them all.
Now, any change I want to make after this, will be made to all four of these.
If I need to ungroup them for some reason...
I can come back over here under Edit Objects, to the icon right next to Group...
...which is Ungroup those objects back on to the original layers.
...and if I click that, they go back to being pink dotted lines again.
...meaning that they are once again separate objects that can be edited independently.
But I want to go ahead and group these, so I'll reselect them...
...by holding down shift and clicking on each one individually...
...come back and group them.
Again, these here are all going to be drilled all the way through.
So I'm going to go ahead and group all of them, even though they're different diameters.
So I'll start out over here...
...and draw a box this direction...
...and if you recall from Episode 1 of this series, if I draw around them from left to right...
...the vectors I'm selecting have to be completely inside that box.
I'll let go of my left mouse button, and all of those vectors are selected...
...except for these here. They were not inside the box.
Now I can come back over here, and group those.
And the same holds true here. If I select one of these, I select all of them.
Now I'm ready to calculate toolpaths.
Yes, it's that easy.
We'll go over here switch to the Toolpath Commands.
Again, I'll look at my Material Setup.
My material is 1/2 inch thick.
My X and Y Datum is in the center.
I want to change that, so I'll click the Set button.
I'll change my XY Datum down to the lower left corner...
...nothing else will change, so I'll go ahead and click OK.
Now we can begin calculating the toolpaths.
I'll start with these here.
We're going to do a Pocket cut, all the way through.
So we'll come over here to this icon, which is Pocket Toolpath.
Click on that...
My starting depth is going to be 0.0 because I'm going to begin cutting on the surface of the material
My cut depth...
I want it to go through the material plus about .005 of an inch...
...so that I've got a good clean cut all the way through.
So again, I'll highlight everything in that box...
...and I'll type Z + .005...
...then when I hit the = button, it does the math for me
For the tool, I'm going to use an end mill.
Now let me say something right here about my selection of end mill.
This is a 1/4 inch hole.
Using a 1/4 inch end mill, it's basically going to cut straight down.
I have got to remember to use an upcut bit when I machine this hole.
An upcut end mill will eject the chips and sawdust upwards, out of that hole.
A downcut bit will try to force them down into the hole that I'm trying to cut.
That will create friction, and that friction WILL start burning.
IT WILL get that hot.
I'm not speaking anecdotally here. I'm speaking from experience.
I don't know a fella who did it.
I did it.
I started a fire on my CNC table...
...drilling straight down, using a downcut bit, not knowing any better.
Ruined the project, and I had to replace the spoilboard.
Do NOT drill straight down into a hole with a downcut bit.
Use an upcut bit - always.
Okay I'll get off of that soapbox.
I'm going to use a 1/4 inch end mill, as is already selected here.
It's going to cut it in 4 passes... that's fine.
I'm not going to use a larger area clearance tool.
The way I'm going to clear these pockets is Offset.
I have two choices here: Offset or Raster.
They both have their place, and they both have their uses.
I find that when you're cutting circular objects...
...especially where the bottom is either non-existent or is not going to be seen..
...the bottom of the pocket that is...
...offset is the best way to go.
Offset machining is... the bit will pick up and come over...
...start plunging into the center, and then start cutting in a circular motion...
...plunge down, then cut again in a circular motion.
The other machining option is Raster.
Raster machining is from side-to-side, with a clean up pass for the profile.
That would mean the bit would attempt to come over here to this little circle...
...plunge in, then move side-to-side, back and forth...
...then clean up the edges with a profile pass.
For this type of operation on a circular pocket, we'll go with Offset Machining...
...it's just easier on the tool.
I'm not going to ramp the plunge moves...
I'll explain ramps in another video.
We'll name this toolpath...
...Through... Hole... Pocket... 1/4 End Mill...
I'll click calculate...
...it's giving me the warning that the tool will cut through the material.
We know that. We want it to.
Click OK, and the toolpath is calculated.
Here again, we have our red lines to show us the rapid moves...
...we have our dark blue lines, although they're very small over here...
...to show us where the tool is going to cut. Then we have the light blue lines showing us our plunge moves.
Here we can see the four separate steps this is going to take to machine out these holes.
I will go ahead and leave this set at Maple...
...I'm not going to concern myself with a toolpath color or a machined area color on a through-hole.
We'll just preview this selected toolpath...
...and there we see those holes drilled all the way through.
Okay, let's reset our view here...
Now we'll close this and go back to the 2D view...
...and we'll select this group.
For these, again, I'm going to use plugs.
I would rather not drill all the way through...
I'm going to cut these 3/8 of an inch deep.
So I've got the entire group selected...
I'll come back up and click Pocket Toolpath...
My start depth is again going to be the surface of the material...
...but I only want to go 3/8 of an inch deep.
So I'll type in .375 since I remember that.
I'm still going to use a 1/4 inch end mill...
...not going to use a large area clearance tool... again I'm going to use offset machining...
We'll come down here and name this...
...3/8 Pocket...
...1/4 End Mill...
...and we'll calculate that toolpath.
Again we have our toolpath outlined here...
...and I'll preview it.
There we go.
I'm not going to give this a toolpath color.
It's not really necessary.
And we've got a nice clean pocket here.
Now if we look down below...
...at our XYZ display down here...
As I mentioned in episode two of this series...
...if you missed that one, I'll put a link up here somewhere...
...if I put the point of my cursor down here in the hole, you see how that Z display down at the bottom...
...changes to reflect the depth that that bit machined it to.
Now I can plug that with a plug cut from a contrasting wood...
...and use standard dowel here in these.
...and I'll have a nice looking clock face here.
About the only thing that we have left to do on this project...
...is our outside profile.
That profile will use a Profile Toolpath like we did in the last video.
Again, our start depth will be the surface of the material.
My cut depth will be Z + .005...
I'll hit the equals button...
That will cut all the way through the material.
For the tool, I'm going to use the same 1/4 inch end mill...
I'm going to cut to the outside of this vector.
I'll use a climb cut.
In this video I'm not gonna do a separate last pass.
I'm not going to add tabs, but if I were this is where I would do them.
I'm not gonna do ramps, leads, or anything...
...but I am gonna go check my corners and make sure I have...
...Sharp External Corners selected here, because I want good sharp external corners.
Then I'll come down here to the bottom and name this...
Profile Cutout...
1/4 End Mill...
Click Calculate...
...it's warning me again that it will cut through the material. That's okay, I want it to.
Now I'll go ahead and preview this toolpath.
Double-click to remove my waste...
...and there's our finished clock face.
That is our finished project.
We're actually ready to save g-code, go outside...
...load this into our controller software, and machine this clock face.
Let me go ahead and straighten that out....
...and close our preview.
Because all of these toolpaths use the same end mill...
I don't even have any tool changes to concern myself with.
I think we'll go ahead and end this video right here.
This was a demonstration to show you just how simple some of these projects can be.
In the time it took to record this video, we not only designed...
...but also calculated toolpaths for and previewed a simple clock face.
This is what I mean when I say that you CAN do this.
I hope you got something out of this video.
If you did, I do hope you'll give me a thumbs up down below.
If you'd like to keep following this beginner series...
...or follow along with some of my other CNC adventures...
...I do hope you'll consider subscribing to my channel.
As always, whether you subscribe to my channel or not, I'd like to thank you very much for watching
...and y'all take care.
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