extruding hole patterns

[shutternaut]

Hi,

 

I am trying to create a shelf pin hole pattern in a board, extruded and ready for export to fusion 360 for cnc milling. I have interiorcad, and I know about the facilities there for creating hole lines. But in this case I need to do it outside of interiorcad. I am wondering if it is possible to use the hole pattern tool in vectorworks to create a shelf pin hole pattern that I could then extrude to a depth, and then subtract those solids from my board? I have been unable to figure out the process for that if it exists. As it stands I will have to create these shelf pin boards in a separate design in fusion 360 and mill them as a separate job.

 

Thanks!

 

[zoomer]

It is better to keep the complicated stuff in VW in 2D :

 

A Rectangle for the board.

An Array of Circles or whatever, for Holes.

"Clip Surface" to cut all Circles from Rectangle.

Extrude that final 2D result.

[shutternaut]

@zoomer Thanks!

[Benson Shaw]

@zoomer doesn’t this make holes in the model at full depth.

@shutternaut  

If 3d partial depth model is required, this is what I do:

     Rectangle extrude for the boards

     Pattern of 2d circles for the pin locations.

     Select all circles  and extrude up or down to depth.

            Result is a single extrude.

            Can copy/paste to other boards as needed.

     Then subtract solids.

      Might help to convert to generic solid prior to export to STL

               dwg or other format required by fusion 360

 

I send lots of drawings for CNC router, laser and water jet,  plus a few for 3d printing. Always exported to dwg for 2d sheet layouts and usually to stl for 2.5d (z control but no tilt - domes and other shapes are stepped) and 3d printing and milling.

For the routers cutting sheet goods, at least, CAM software I encounter usually has z control for the hole or slot depths even though the drawing is 2d.

 

Anyway hope it all mills perfectly!

 

-B

 

Edited March 6, 2019 by Benson Shaw
Sometimes I sits and thinks. Sometimes I just sits.

[zoomer]

Yes, full depth.

But you could also add a second Rectangle Extrude behind and Add Solids.

 

The Problem with cutting Cylinders from Slabs is a risk that at some point,

when you edit that Solid (by PushPullTool ?),

that those holes lose their roundness of being Cylinders or Circles but

becoming polygonal.

 

As long as you are in 2D, you can do the most complex Boolean Subtractions

without running into any problems. From my experience, doing the same

Operations by 3D Geometry is much more risky.

So when ever possible, I try to do as much as I can in 2D first.

Edited March 9, 2019 by zoomer

[Benson Shaw]

Zoomer is right. Simpler is better.  

 

Clip surface is another operation that converts circles to 4 vertex polys. These can end up faceted. Cutting shops have such varied (and often very old) software that I don’t trust the clip surface when ported to dwg. I leave the circles as raw geometry “on” the rectangle.

 

It’s a choice: Clip Surface has advantages -  the clips usually cut as circles, and the clipped elements in the polygon maintain their relative positions when the poly is moved. But problems, too. Any rescale edits of the clipped circles involve entering the enclosing poly and drawing new circles to replace the converted ones. Gets tedious if lots of holes to edit. 

 

-B

[zoomer]

If you kept a copy,

the cool thing about 2D in VW is that you can select all Circles

at a time to change their Radius or quickly re-array them.

You could with extruded Circles too but not with generic solids.

But I think extruding a complex 2D shape is more reliable than

Subtract Solids.

[AlanW]

Hi, @shutternaut

Could use marionette, in this file just make a few different symbols and change them. you can make the reverse also, panel with holes.

HTH

Screens_v2017.vwx

Edited March 19, 2019 by Alan Woodwell