Possible to assign a tool to always go clockwise?

ryan · Post by **ryan** » Mon May 18, 2009 10:37 am

If I have a bunch of 2d curves for engraving, I always set them to clockwise because my knife cuts more accurately. But my routing engraving does better running counter clockwise.

Is there anything in the post settings that I can tweak to get this,
Thanks.

Post by **MecSoft Support** » Tue May 19, 2009 8:55 am

Ryan,

Setting the Spindle RPM to a negative value under Feeds/Speeds dialog would turn on Counter Clockwise Rotation of the spindle.
(For example: -8000)

Speeds/Feeds can be set to the tool under the Create/Select Tool dialog.

ryan · Post by **ryan** » Tue May 19, 2009 11:31 am

Thanks for the reply.

That is something I will have to explore further.

I was referring to the actual direction of the cut being CW or CCW, not the spindle direction.

Sorry for the confusion.
Thanks.

Post by **MecSoft Support** » Tue May 19, 2009 11:39 am

You can just change the direction of the curves in Rhino to change the direction of cuts.

ryan · Post by **ryan** » Wed May 20, 2009 7:15 am

That is what I normally do. And in my engraving workflow as a rule I make all curves go Clockwise, only because it is easy to teach someone and remember, "OK before I generate the toolpaths I need to make sure everything is Clockwise."

But I am finding out that the routing does a better job if the curve to be engraved is counterclockwise.

Which is fine. But some of these same curves will be knife cut by our machine after the routing and the knife cut has to go clockwise. This is handled by an auto-tool change.

If there was a way either in the post processor or tool definition that would make the knife always cut Clockwise regardless of the curve direction. I'm only talking about engraving operations, BTW.

Thanks for the replies.

Post by **MecSoft Support** » Wed May 20, 2009 3:07 pm

Ryan,

Since changing the direction of the toolpath involves changes in the computed motions, the post cannot do this. The post can only change the formatting of the output. So you will have to continue doing what you are doing now to get CCW and CW motions.

ryan · Post by **ryan** » Wed May 20, 2009 4:45 pm

Do you think this is something that could be handled by the controller for the machine? I know there is a lot more I could be doing with my machine and I have a hard time knowing if this is something that lies in it's purpose.

Thank you for the replies.

Post by **MecSoft Support** » Thu May 21, 2009 8:22 am

You will have to talk with you controller manufacturer about this. Sorry can't help you there.

donl517 · Post by **donl517** » Sat May 23, 2009 6:17 am

Ryan,

Would a script to duplicate and reverse the curve direction help you at all? You could move the duplicated curves to a new layer to simplify selection. (i.e. REV_Parent Layer).

Don

Edit: You can try the attached file and see how it works. Right now it auto selects all the curves in the file, duplicates, reverses and moves them to a new layer. If you prefer to select only certain curves Uncomment line 13 and comment out line 12. (Use the apostrophe character to comment out a line.

HTH,
Don

ryan · Post by **ryan** » Thu May 28, 2009 5:24 am

Don, you are on a scripting rampage!

Let me give this a shot and get back to you!
Thanks.