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Car body

Discussion in '* Scratch Built Section *' started by Tonico, Aug 28, 2012.

  1. Tonico

    Tonico New Member

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    Hi
    I have been looking at PlatCam as a possible solution for what I am trying to do. The idea would be to machine a foam plug of a model car body.
    I have looked at the "full scale cowling" thread and that would certainly be one way to do it. What I would prefer would be to machine the whole body in one piece or possibly a couple pieces to deal with the undercuts which are only possible with a 5 axis machine The CNC machine that I am planning would have a fairly long Z-axix. The scale that I am looking at would be in the somewhere in the 1/10 to 1/4 range.
    What has me baffled is how to go from a Sketch up model to PhlatCam. I would take an existing body design in Sketchup and than create the G-code with PhlatCam I have looked at some of the tutorials and they all basically seem to assume that you are actually cutting sections of relatively thin materials. Actually that is more like 2.5D rather than 3D.
    Any suggestions or tutorials showing how to accomplish this would be appreciated
    TIA
    Tony
     
  2. Evil-Tunes

    Evil-Tunes Moderator Staff Member

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    Hello Tony :byei:

    You would need a "Slicer" addon for SU

    You can set the thickness of the material for your project on the software side.

    As thick as your "cnc" can cut it.

    The PP are limited to 1 3/4" because of bit length.

    Build in SU, Slice it, then CNC each slice. :doubleup:

    Check out Neil he is doing a FULL CAR out of slices.
    Cheers
    E-T
     
  3. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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  4. Tonico

    Tonico New Member

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    Hi
    Thanks for the replies. What I am after is exactly what is done in Phlat3D which is incorporated into SketchUcam. I have looked at those threads. Something like machining the two haf of a fuse, What has me baffled is that if I look at most tutorials you design a flat part say the control horn Tutorial. You than place it on the safe area. Than you select the "Outside Cutting tool", etc, etc. Fundamently you are simply cutting around a shape fon a piece of flat material. My confusion at that point is that the final surface would not be flat but rather courved. I am not sure if I make myself clear. Here's an example: Say I design a half sphere in Sketch up. Than I place it in the safe area. Than what?
    Thanks
    Tony
     
  5. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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    You may want to look at this thread as well Tony. There are no real tutorials on using the 3D as of yet but its pretty straight forward in that in your example above you would simply put the half sphere in the safe cutting area and then in the SketchUcam parameters you would check the box that says generate 3D code. This turns on the 3D engine for when you click on the green arrow for creating the code. Make sure you have your sphere the right size, for example if your using 2" thick material your sphere needs to be no higher then 2" there are a few bugs but it does work and is a lot of fun to carve 3D objects :)
    viewtopic.php?f=185&t=2438#p38459
    Mark and Trish
     
  6. NeilBlanchard

    NeilBlanchard Member

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    I think 1 1/2" thick or 1" thick foam is the way to go. If your model is smooth enough, you can even do 3D on the edges, though that might be harder to do than manual smoothing.

    My model (of CarBEN EV5) was not smooth enough and it was incomplete on the inside, so I had to do a lot of manual drafting in DataCAD to get it to work. Can you post images of your model? Try cutting sections/slices of you model -- how big are they? You will have to figure a way to split them down so they fit onto a 2'x8' foam sheets. I used jigsaw joints.
     
  7. Tonico

    Tonico New Member

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    Thanks a bunch for the assist guys. This gives me some direction. I am still researching various options and verify that there is a high probality that they work together.

    Thanks
    Tony
     
  8. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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    No problem Tony glad we could help, its really just a matter of trying different ideas out and seeing how they may work together.
    Don't forget to look into other plugins for SketchUp that help make the program even more useful. In particular slicer is a good one for breaking a model into several layer slices for milling separately in order to create a real world model larger then the cutting area of the machine.
    viewtopic.php?f=103&t=95
    You may also want to look into other cam/cam systems as well to see of they are better suited for your needs.
    Here is a thread on other cams and cads that some of the guys like to use in conjunction with SketchUp and SketchUcam
    viewforum.php?f=114&start=0
    Mark and Trish
     

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