Digital Wood Joint Testers?

Hey all, I am working on converting some of the 50 free digital wood joints to Sketchup models:

[www.flexiblestream.org]

(Click "Download all joints" on the right)

I thought these would be great for new Handibot owners. I have more than half of them converted in Sketchup so that they are easy to see (they will be on the 3D Warehouse when I'm done with them)

I am also working on getting some Shopbot cutting files all setup for them. I tested one out today:

Wood Joint

Would anyone here be interested in cutting some of these? All you need is some scrap 3/4" x 2" stock (you can rescale if you want to cut a different size) and a few minutes of time.

Let me know and I can post files and instructions so that you all can try them out. If you want to cut them in different stock, let me know.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2014 09:47PM by Eric Schimelpfenig.

I'm in. May be the weekend before I can try some but this is a fine cause to donate a little time to.

Do you have VCarve?

Yeah, everyone that kickstartered has Vcarve to the best of my knowledge.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2014 10:11PM by Mark Evans.

Ok, here is the link to the files:

[www.dropbox.com]

I don't think you'll be able to open the VCarve file, because I am running a newer version of VCarve than you, it's worth a shot though.

If you can't open it I included the DXF file so you can just import it. Check the picture I posted. What I did was put a fence on my bot along the bottom (along X) at Y 0.

I ripped a 3/4" thick piece of solid stock down to 2".

The idea with this setup was to be able to setup the Handibot on a bench, cut my frame stock to length and just put it in and be able to make these joints for doors or cabinetry on demand. I would have a wooden stop setup at 0.

The way I was doing it was to have the tool do the relief first, and then go along the left side and make the cutout. After it was done, I could pull the stock out and insert the next one, hit CTRL R and do it again.

One thing I learned right away is that even though I had 2" stock, and a well setup bottom jig, the relief didn't quite clear out the material on the top and bottom fully, so as you can see in the screenshot the directory, I scaled up the VCarve file (and that DXF) be larger than 2", and to drop below 0 and above 2" just a little but. Fortunately this is still within the working range of the Handibot as they give you a little wiggle room.

Take a look and let me know what you think. I am happy to help you out in anyway.

I cut this first at 0 tolerance. After a little bit of sanding, and a solid whack with a dead blow, I was able to get it to assemble. I started playing around with the tolerances a little by offsetting the relief line, and the cutout line to see if I could get the fit a little looser. I am trying to find a good method to hit the sweet spot of requiring minimal sanding but still to have a tight fit to allow testing, and then gluing.

Here's a quick tip for adjusting the fit tolerance. Instead of offsetting the parts in your drawing, use the "Allowance Offset" in the profile Toolpathing section, or "Pocket Allowance" when doing pocketing. It does the same thing as offsetting, without actually resizing the parts in your drawing which can cause problems down the road.

In an outside profile cut, a positive number for the allowance makes the part cut larger, and a negative number makes it cut smaller. It's opposite in a pocket or an inside profile...a positive allowance makes the pocket/cut smaller, and a negative makes it larger.

Bill

Ah, great suggestion. I like that a lot better than having to modify geometry.

Here's a good link for that:

[support.vectric.com]

I finally got around to making my first cuts on my HandiBot today. I was trying to create some toolpaths for some of the Digital Wood Joints that Eric refers to and here are some of my results.

Granted, I have a long way to go to perfect my cuts. I don't have any jigs created yet.

Just wanted to share what I have been able to do so far.

Here is a link to some of my VCarve Toolpath preview images and a couple of pics of my cuts I made today.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=F36FABD7E8F7762!6846&authkey=!AD-wN9Ykd7InMYU&ithint=folder%2c

The link I posted seems to be responding slowly (at least it did when I tested it) so it may take a little time to open the link.

Thanks,

Gil

Nice work!! Your first ones look even better than mine!

If I get a chance over the next few days I'll convert more of them for you all.

Gil are you on VCarve 7.5 yet? If so I can just send you Sketchup models that I've already made of some of the joints.

Yes, I have updated to 7.508 the other night.

GiIll, those are impressive. Some people catch on quicker than others. My first cuts where quickly hidden. :-)

Eric, I have that one joint you wanted me to try ,I plan on spending some time on it tomorrow and Sunday so if you want to assign a second and /or third I will do what I can...

So this file isn't done yet, but I have about half of the joints converted. Your best bet is to pick the one you want, and copy/paste it into a new file. I would explode them once so that they are separated into two pieces (just right click a joint and click "explode")

You will see that on some of them where it matters which way they are printed, there is a neon green face. That face is supposed to the the one facing up. When you import into VCarve you can tell it to turn all of your parts that way automatically in the dialog when you import.

[www.dropbox.com]

Most of these will fit in a 6x8" cutting area, some just need to be resized a little bit.

Eric, I tried to import your .skp file into VCarve but I am getting the following error msg:

"Error occurred while processing data - please check for duplicate lines, crossings etc."

This is presented in a messagebox window numerous times. Maybe for every layer being imported?

I can't cancel the process and I had to kill VCarve Pro to get out of the import sequence.

My steps:

I created a new file and then selected your file for importing vectors. I tried the default settings on the import form and also by choosing the option to orient by faces.

I am having the same problem with the sketch-up import but the .dfx file imported fine.

the Maltese cross joint did great, cut it out of 3/4 ply// .73", adjusted the depths accordingly and it did great. Looks like that 10 thousands is about right, might even want to try 7 thousands?

Never did get import to work from the sketch-up but all the joints that I have tried import into Vcarve great from the 2D .dfx files and when they are first imported everything is selected for full scaling of the joint.

Before I had to go to other obligations I tried some half lap joints as while there is nothing "gee whiz" about them they seem to be the workhorse of cnc joints. In doing so, I learned about offsetting the zeros.

These joint files are set up for re-zeroing the x at three or so and cutting from a pencil line. Or you could copy pasty into another Vcarve file.

I did 1x3 and 1x4 edge to edge, with time I will do more till I have a whole collection.

[www.dropbox.com]

How is it with the handibot - did you had the timber planned to a specific width and height? And then used the handibot cut out at the end of the timber for the joints?

How precise is the measurment with the handibot?

Best regards
Florian

I used a bottom fence on mine so that I could align the wood along the X axis. I attached the bot with the fence to my bench. I slid the wood on, and I had a stop so that the lumber end would be at 0. Does that make sense?

Hey Gil, I saved out another joint in the directory on Dropbox:

[www.dropbox.com]

Both of the ones in there are working just fine. Don't try to import the one that is all of the joints just use the ones in individual sub folders. If you try to import the master file you will get warnings from VCarve. Also, make sure you "auto orientate by Top Face" when you bring them in, and uncheck "replace all outer boundaries"