Enhancements to assist in workflows

#1

I’ve drawn +/- 17 custom cabinets for the laundry room in Sketchup. I have a scene with just the parts that will be CNC cut (drawer parts, cabinet parts, etc.).

  1. Be nice if the component name was included as part of the vectors being exported - so when I get them into VCarve I know one part from another. Before Fabber, I would do this manually - the VCarve nesting process keeps the descriptions / vectors together. It would be great if the descriptions were on a separate layer so they could be switched on / off.

  2. Also, I have not tested this yet - but … in the initial tutorial it shows how to set the component axis (for me, blue is the z axis, red is x and green is the y axis). I always have my sheet good on the CNC with the grain pattern running parallel to the X Axis. I hoping that when the part goes to VCarve, that Fabber will respect the component axis so I can maintain the grain pattern on the part (note - in VCarve, I do not allow the parts to be flipped / rotated in the nesting process … so, this already works.)

  3. For cabinet parts that will have a drilling operation, I have a separate component for the “hole”. This component has a line connected to it that sets it a specific distance from the edge of the cabinet part. If I export the cabinet back component (for example) that has several hole sub-components … the sub-components are not exported to the DXF / VCarve Pro. (Or, I maybe I’m missing something?). I use a lot of standard sub-components (e.g. I have a component that has the hole spacing layout for drawer glides) so I do not have to re-draw them into each major component.

Really loving the extension - thanks for listening!

#2

That’s a great suggestion, one that we’d really like to implement. Stay tuned.

The default orientation upon import matches the way you have the axes orientated in SketchUp. The most critical one is the blue axis because that tells us which side to look at the part from. If you want to have your default import be a certain way, red in SketchUp =X on your machine, Green = Y. Test it out. When you import and you nest, you can tell VCarve not to rotate your parts, so if you get the default import right you can maintain that grain direction.

We have yet to implement sub components like that, but I’d like to. Right now we detect holes. So in the Fabber settings panel if we see a hole that matches your tool diameter we’ll treat it as a drilling toolpath. If it’s smaller we ignore it, and if it’s larger it’s considered in inside toolpath.

I sound like a broken record, but we’re definitely looking at ways to build that in. Right now your sub components will get discarded. What I’d recommend is to build your model with them, and then make a copy of the parts and just explode them down and export the exploded parts (that you make back into a component)

#3

You may be able to use the ABF plugn, which solves some of the problems you describe.

#4

What’s the ABF plugin?

#5