Anyone Doing C.A.D. Drawings??

D

Diamond G Knives

Well-Known Member
Needing to have some CAD drawings done for some of my designs. Anyone here have the ability to do this? Or know of anyone that does it outsource?

Thanks, and God Bless
Mike
 
Mike,
How do you have them drawn now? Can you email them? Are these for outsourcing your Blanks (waterjet, plazma, laser)? I can draw them in AutoCAD for you, and send you the files in . dwg, or .dxf, or whatever your supplier needs. It only takes a few minutes.
Bob
 
I have asked the same thing. I need a few drawn up one for sure but have not found anyone willing to help me.
 
I do all mine in AutoCad as Ive used it for 20+yrs
Im in UK but but should make no difference in the Internet age
just need a profile scan of a drawing or a Photo square on
import scale to size and trace tehn tidy up or alter to suit

here is the parang ive jsut doen from the picture sent

parang1.jpg







If you want to try it your self you can use Inkscape which is free and can be imported to Autocad etc

it can also convert a scanned line drawing directly to a vector which only needs a little cleaning up to use ideal for quick one offs

ATB

Duncan
 
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I'm needing to do something similar. I do my designs in neu.draw on my iPad and can export them as a PDF. Is there a free and reliable way to convert them to dxf for laser cutting?

Thanks
 
You guys could also use google sketch up. I use if from time to time when breaking out an army of rulers and french curves doesn't make much sense.

http://sketchup.google.com/download/

This sketch was transferred to JPG but can be formatted into a slew of other extensions depending on your needs.

Chopper2.jpg
 
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TheSlacker said:
I'm needing to do something similar. I do my designs in neu.draw on my iPad and can export them as a PDF. Is there a free and reliable way to convert them to dxf for laser cutting?

Thanks
Click to expand...

inkscape says it can import .pdf as well as a lot of other stuff it can also output .dxf

Ive not tried using inkscape .dxf direct to the laser cutter as I use it as a processing step to get it into Autocad where I know what all the shiny buttons do

but it should be possible your laser cutter may have to do a bit more tidy up work

ATB

Duncan
 
Any program that can export dxf should work. Not to pick on Mike, or Duncan's drawings, but do NOT send a drawing like that to your cutter. No details like handles, bolsters, or grind lines. No little accidental pieces of lines, or arcs, or any other goemetry. Only the outline, and holes that you want. They will cut every line in the drawing, and if they have to clean the drawing up you might be charged a fee.
There may also be a nesting fee when they set up the program. You might be able to get around this if you arrange your knives in a pattern to leave as little waste as possible. Leave about 3/16" between them (that is for plasma. Waterjet might be closer). I would also arrange them in a longitudinal pattern to where the grain of the steel runs the same direction in all the blades.
Bob
 
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BobH said:
Any program that can export dxf should work. Not to pick on Mike, or Duncan's drawings, but do NOT send a drawing like that to your cutter. No details like handles, bolsters, or grind lines. No little accidental pieces of lines, or arcs, or any other goemetry. Only the outline, and holes that you want. They will cut every line in the drawing, and if they have to clean the drawing up you might be charged a fee.
There may also be a nesting fee when they set up the program. You might be able to get around this if you arrange your knives in a pattern to leave as little waste as possible. Leave about 3/16" between them (that is for plasma. Waterjet might be closer). I would also arrange them in a longitudinal pattern to where the grain of the steel runs the same direction in all the blades.
Bob
Click to expand...

Good points, Bob. I've not sent much out to be cut so most sketches I do are for reference while I grind or as patterns. But as you said, there are things to remember such as that, which could run up a bill quite fast. I've learned that the smallest hole that can be cut is equal to the thickness of the material. In addition, when transferring files from one program to another, you have to make sure that your edges are smooth and continuous. I had an issue once where the cutting program interpreted a circle as a polygon and would start and stop at each vertices.

Thanks again for the clarifying. :biggrin:

-Mike
 
BobH said:
Any program that can export dxf should work. Not to pick on Mike, or Duncan's drawings, but do NOT send a drawing like that to your cutter. No details like handles, bolsters, or grind lines. No little accidental pieces of lines, or arcs, or any other goemetry. Only the outline, and holes that you want. They will cut every line in the drawing, and if they have to clean the drawing up you might be charged a fee.
There may also be a nesting fee when they set up the program. You might be able to get around this if you arrange your knives in a pattern to leave as little waste as possible. Leave about 3/16" between them (that is for plasma. Waterjet might be closer). I would also arrange them in a longitudinal pattern to where the grain of the steel runs the same direction in all the blades.
Bob
Click to expand...

Quite right that's a development sketch fro the customer which is then cleaned up for the cutter I have a good relationship with my laser and water jet cutter and they know to tell me if there's a problem with the CAD and i Sort it out ( as Ive far more experience than they do on CAD the even ask my help on other stuff some times )

Ask them how they would like the profiles for easiest processing

they do the nesting as they dont know want shape steel they will use till they pull it out they keep stock so i dont have to buy a whole sheet

I do know they allow 5mm all round so adds up to 10mm ( 3/8") between items
water jet can be much much closer



heres how that one went to the cutter

shows material spec 75cr1 and thickness 4.5mm

my part no and how many DPA (3 off)

and they like the over all dimesions on



parang.png



heres a full cut i did last year each coloum is a different material / thickness adds up to 800 blades

lasercut400.png
 
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Duncan said "they do the nesting as they dont know what shape steel they will use till they pull it out they keep stock so i dont have to buy a whole sheet"

Good Point. And your drawing is spot on. That's what they like to see.
Bob
 
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Oh and it might be worth getting a scale pattern cut at the same time if your doing a few of the same model etc

I get mine cut in 80 thou pre hardened 420 ss with the pin holes and options cut at small drill sizes so i can cut drill and pretty much finish to size both scales off the knife etc

TANK1.jpg



my std templates

Scaletemplates.jpg
 
I can do 2d or 3d drawings for anyone who needs them.
I have autocad, unigraphics and solidworks. Just give me a pm if you something done.
 
Eric, that is a very generous offer. On my part, I really want to learn how to do it myself, that way I'm not relying on the kindness of others.

I did manage to score a copy of autocad... Now I just have to learn how to use it!
 
It's easy...it takes a little while to get going, but it will be rewarding...give me a shout if you need some help.
 
Its not that difficult especially for basic stuff like knives

the main PITA is finding the buttons as Acad has hundreds of features covering a wide range of engineering applications for knives you only need the basics

ATB

Duncan
 
Ok Eric, I have a question for ya. How can I import a pdf, or any other format of illustrator created file into Autocad to work on?
 
Go to File> Insert> Raster Image Referance

select the file you want to import ( dont think it does pdf but will do Jpeg giff etc etc)

tick the boxes for Insertion point on screen and scale on screen leave angle not ticked and set to 0

you then get to place the bottom left corner of the picture with a click then moving the mouse will scale the box up n down click when its a sensible size on screen

you can then trace over the profile using Line Arc spline etc
then scale the trace to the size you want


if you have a basic line drawing you could import into Inkscape and convert to a Vector drawing this you can save as a dxf format and open directly in CAD you do end up with thousands of Nodes and vectors which may need cleaning up or a thick black line will end up as 2 vector lines spaced the width of the line.

ATB

Duncan
 
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