PatternPilot

My Feedback: (58)

I'm looking for help... new to cad..I have done the bulkhead drawings but my laser cutter wants all the bulkheads on one sheet to save material and cut time. I have asked a few people and did some reading and saw nesting and a block drawing but still confused. can some one point me to a good tutorial , i learn by watching or what would some one charge to move about 6 bulkheads to 2 separate sheet drawings.

Drawing is one of five individual parts i need put on on drawing.

Scott

Laird SS

I think it would really help you get a good answer if you gave a little more info, eg, what CAD program to start. There are many out there to choose from.

limeybob

My Feedback: (6)

Start a new drawing with a rectangle the size of the wood.
Then cut and paste.
limeybob

PatternPilot

My Feedback: (58)

autocad 2012

soliex

Scott

I'm a SolidWorks user and haven't used ACAD in years so I'm not sure if this will work, but you should be able to add views to your drawing at will. You should have created all your bulkheads in different layers so they can be hidden only showing the bulkhead you need. Once you have a bulkhead loaded into the drawing you should be able to move it into position then lock that view and add the next. Let me know if that works.

Dave

BMatthews

yep, that's what I figure as well.

Orient the parts to fit best or to have the grain running in the desired direction on the parts and fit them as tightly as you can within the limits for proximity you get from the cutting service. I don't see anything wrong with nesting parts in the waste cutouts like you've shown.

There's no tutorial on something like this as it's a simple matter of open your main drawing, then start a new drawing. Select and copy from the main and then paste into the new drawing. It's "CunN'Paste 101". You're simply pasting into a new drawing instead of the original. You're done when all the parts of the same material and thickness are on the new drawing and fit within the limits of the wood size available from the cutting service. Rotate to fit or orient for grain direction and then shuffle parts around to use the minimum of wood. The cutter guy will likely also tell you that no two parts should be closer than some amount. You'll need to ask them what that distance is for each type of wood.

The laser cutter doesn't care what your building plan looks like. They just want the cutting files. If you send the general plan then they need to do the cutting files to lay out the parts to suit the wood size. The cutter is a printer that simply "prints" what it is sent. If you don't do it the cutting service guy has to do it. And you pay for that time. It's better if you can send them separate cut files for each type and thickness of wood.

One thing I don't see on your pdf sketch is the line breaks that are needed to produce the little "bridges" that hold the parts in the sheet until you cut them away. You'll need those or again the cutter guy will need to re-do your cut file drawings to include them. One way to do these is to use the "line break" tool to cut the line in two points about 1/16 apart and delete the portion between the line breaks. Do this for three or four points around the lines for each part and each center portion.

PatternPilot

My Feedback: (58)

Well I have tried the cut and paste and it does not work. I did not do the drawing in layers, each bulkhead is it's own drawing ( file name) so it is not as easy cut and paste. I need to be able to move the objects around and keep tight and even put objects inside the wasted space of the bulkhead.

I see I have a PM , I will check that.

s.

iron eagel

You have to have a new sheet or document or square for the size of the wood open in one window. Open the drawing of the part you want on your wood select all of the part you want on your "wood drawing" copy it go back to your first window and paste. Do this for all of you parts and drag them to whatever location you want them to be on the "wood drawing". It's that simple with most artwork in any format as long as all of the drawings are the same scale.
I hope this helps...

LesUyeda

"http://www.manzanolaser.com/html/cut_file_guidelines.html"

This may help. It is the guidelines that I have used.

Les

PatternPilot

My Feedback: (58)

Thanks for all the help.

s.

Shadowtech666

Engineering Student here,

To make a file of multiple bulkheads from different files, you should use an assembly. You can create an assembly from sketches and string them together into one file with proper spacings and that. The issue is that I'm almost certain Auto CAD 2012 does not have assembly features. You can download Autodesk Inventor 2013 from their website for free (just say you are a student) and go from there. Once you do that, plug in all of your sketches to an assembly and export to a file format supported by your laser cutter.

BMatthews

There's a couple of ways to do the cut and paste or to bring the separate files into one file.

One is to open the files all in turn while keeping the cut file open. As you open each single bulkhead select the whole drawing and then "copy" by one of three methods. One is to right click and see if a sub menu opens. If one does likely it will have an option for "copy". The other method is to use the "Edit" from the toolbar. It'll drop down a list of options and one of these will be to "Copy" the selected material. The third way is to simply select all the bulkhead then do a Ctl-C key combination to copy the selected drawing of the bulkhead. Then switch to the cutting file and use the right click to produce the sub menu box and select "Paste", the Edit tool and then "Paste" or Ctl-V to paste the selection into the cut file drawing. Then move the bulkhead around and rotate as needed.

This stuff isn't really so much a CAD specific task as it is basic material copy, cut and paste handling. It's certainly worth your while to learn how to do this as it will show up with other programs be they using text, images, CAD or any number of other programs that handle any sort of material.

Two other Control codes that are related to this sort of basic handling are Ctl-X to "Cut" selected material from a drawing or image or body of text. The other is when you hit the wrong keys and things dissappear or the wrong stuff shows up. Hitting Ctl-Z is an "Undo" command where you can back up and undo the last however many operations you have done. This applies to anything, not just cut, copy or paste operations. If you're typing a sentance you can use Ctl-Z to undo letters or words that you just typed out.

Another option is to open your cutting file that will contain all the bulkheads. Then typically the CAD program should have an Insert-File or Import-File option where you can select each bulkhead file and have it import onto the new drawing as a new selection. Then simply move it around and orient it where you want it to go. Continue to "insert" or "import" the bulkheads until they are all done.

You will likely want to look up the correct name and method for these operations in your own CAD's Help file to make sure you are using the right function.

Jim_Purcha

My Feedback: (8)

I agree with Matthew on using the Edit command to copy and paste between autocad drawings. I do that quite a bit at work on Autocad 14. Once you have pasted the item onto your drawing layer and placed it in the proper position, it has to be exploded or it remains as block. It seems like no matter how much solidworks I do at work, sometimes it is still faster to create the drawing in Autocad.

Jim

mkoe

IMHO, Iwould think your person that is doing the laser cutting would have no problem doing this for you. Asking you to get a CAD program and do this yourself for 5 or 6 pieces is just nonsense. Idon't expect people that want me to cut parts on my cnc to be able to do all of the work. If you gave me 5 individule pieces I could have them on a nested format in about 1 min. based on how you wanted them oriented for grain.

Just my humble opinion.

Not saying that you would not benifit from the learning of CAD but at this point you are paying someone to help you get these done.

MK

limeybob

My Feedback: (6)

That's what I will do for my customers.
limeybob