Hi,

I have designed a hinge in openscad (see attached as stl as can't attache openscad), exported it as dxf and loaded it into sketchup using freedxf (which worked well). So far so good.
However... I have added a line to define the area that needs to be milled lower. after doing that, my part was divided into two parts and I cant tell sketchucam to do the outside of both and pocket the area that needs to be lowered.
when I choose the outside cut tool and touch inside the round area, it adds a cut for the dividing line as well.

I tried to look up solutions for this but couldn't find anything, probably because its really hard for me to phrase the question.

to make things simpler, supposed i wanted to mill a part that is a cylinder but only half of it is milled to half height. so, the 2d drawing of this will be a circle with a line going through the middle. If I Phlaten the drawing and then use the outside tool, when i touch the half circle, it will create a path including the middle line, which is not what i want.

I am sure this is a stupid mistake but I have already spent a couple of hours on this

Thanks,
Moshe

 

Thanks! Things are much clearer now, although a bit disappointing. I was hoping for a less manual process....
I'll give it a try try tomorrow. I guess my main problem was trying to do everything in one go.

 

I think there is no reason to be disappointed.
The plugin required a lot of effort from the developers to get to the current stage.
I do all my drawings with Sketchup and I use Sketchucam a lot for simpler jobs because of the practicality of creating Gcode quickly, when I need something more sophisticated in 3D I use other proprietary programs.

 

Apologies, my disappointment was not meant toward the plugin, but in general, more existential way, toward the machining process. I hoped the cam software can magically transform my 3d object into cnc instructions. I now realize this is a dream really, unless you buy a multi k$ software and even that doesn't work all the time. I am always grateful for free software and sketchucam is really great. I am over my existential disappointed phase now and boldly look into the future

 

I think the center of your statement is '3d object'. SketchUcam is not meant for 3d cnc. For that I would suggest Fusion 360, which is free but has an 'Oh My F...ing God' learning curve, which can do 3d cnc output.

 

My pard is actually very 2.5d. The problem is that there are several overlapping operations at the same location. After having some more experience in explaining things to cam software i might give it another try, as i think i might be able to do it with minor adjustments.
Yes, i could never grasp the autocad logic . I don't think I'll go that path.
Just to explain why this was needed... This is a hinge, made of wood. Being a hinge, i would like to be able to produce it so it matches the box, so height, width and length are parameters. Openscad is happy to produce the hinge according to the parameters and my dream was to load it into a cam and press go.