Need help on a panel door

pcmoor

A nice detailed door

the first step is to identify components which we can reuse, these are the back board, rail, style and mould.
the board is quite simple and probably best suited as the reference to position the other components

now split the rail into 3 simple shapes and make them groups not components, you can see the stile is similar so it can be a modified rail.

the mould is spilt into three, the mitres and the length between

step 2 to come soon...

Step 1: split the object into simple shapes

Futurepast

I see where you are going with this... the angles have to be treated separate so they don't "distort" when changing the panel to another size that isn't perfectly square. But now, how would this export to Cutlist?

ArCAD-UK

You may want to seriously consider abandoning DC's if you want to do take offs where there are mitres involved. DC's are best limited to a single component count.

Have a look at the FredoScale plugin which may allow you resizing without distortion and quantity take offs.

Futurepast

I know that if I group the miter cuts and center pieces AFTER I pick a size, then cut list will give me the stick length. So If I import separate copies into my drawing and mod them individually, I'm thinking it's a "little" faster to go to cut list...am I wrong? But still having problems getting all the pieces to align properly.

EDIT Well after messing with this all day, I have come to the conclusion that unless they can get this to go down one more tier (Grand parent to Grand child) this is just a "movement" or for "show and tell" tool and not good for cutlist import at all.

pcmoor

Hi again

with regards to building the mitred moulding
I hide the the share lines and delete the the internal surfaces
Then change the axis so as make minimum need for formulas,

the sizes of the mitres are trapped, the section of the length is also trapped, only movement is along x-axis

the scale tool is incorporated for easy size change for other projects

with regards to "cut-list" I did not know it was part of the criteria so I've downloaded it and will try to figure it out

cheers

hide shared outlines, delete shared faces

make group with axis placed as shown, click into lenX,LenY,LenZ and place = before the value
this will stop the mitre from distorting

middle, place axis along same line, make LenY,LenZ fixed

right, same as per left

with the groups placed together make them a component with axis placed as per left group, this then minimizes the need for complex positions, only need to consider changes in the X direction of the groups

now consider the relationships with the groups for positions along the x-axis

restricted scaling of the component (this is done for reuse for other projects

add a relation between lenX of middle and full length of object

pciture frame.skp

pcmoor

had a quick look @ cutlist

I note that my picture frame produces 4 lengths (middle) and 8 ends (4 left,4 right), the middles are short points to the mitre ends

if I open a moulding and explode the 3 groups then I can get a single entity on the list

(this maybe the foundation to a ruby script,,,"explode internal entities", the coders can make)

Futurepast

you did a great job of explaining it!!!! Last night I did finish the thing, but not quite like you did.... mines sloppy in comparison but you can see how I bungled through it. I just go in and group the 2 miters and center pieces after I set the door size and then it exports to cut list fine,(it only goes done 2 layers)then I can explode the group to edit it if need be.

Wanescot PanelDoor.skp

pcmoor

Cheers Mike,

it works, just need to hide the joins (double click the offending surface, right click, hide)
I am glad you didn't give up...
your model is completed..I'm still playing around with some ideas...

I added formulas to the mould I made which allows change in degrees, added options to pick scale or fixed length (thanks to "eselick".... "Scale AND keyed in values for component size")

Philip

stage 3 ...refinements

mould template.skp

Futurepast

I did as you suggested and hide those ends looks much better!
but did discover an error I have to fix when I move the door lol Post yours when done am interested in seeing finished formulas

Futurepast

Ok got it fixed. I made the mistake of referencing the door Z value instead of just referencing the bottom style lol everytime I moved the door up the rails went to the moon! Still have improvements to make... but it has been interesting lol

Wanescot PanelDoor.skp

Dave R

Question for you: How does your door show up in a cutlist?

Futurepast

@dave r said:

Question for you: How does your door show up in a cutlist?

Sorry it took so long to answer have been in the shop a lot working. As to Cut list, it shows each piece of trim as three separate pieces. But, since the ends are all the same and only the length of the center changes, I manually edit the export file and just add in the length of 2 ends to the length of the center and delete the ends. This works because cutlist reads the end trim to the long point of the miter. I just made sure the naming is correct left center right or top center bottom so I can find them later.

Dave R

Ah. I see. So does a panel show up as nine parts?

As long as it works for you. I guess if you have a lot of the same doors, that could be workable. My personal preference is to keep the parts as single entities and get accurate numbers out of the cut list without doing any math. I've never found resizing doors manually to be any trouble, anyway.

Futurepast

@dave r said:

Ah. I see. So does a panel show up as nine parts?

As long as it works for you. I guess if you have a lot of the same doors, that could be workable. My personal preference is to keep the parts as single entities and get accurate numbers out of the cut list without doing any math. I've never found resizing doors manually to be any trouble, anyway.

No the panel just resizes

Dave R

Oh. Just a flat panel, then. Not raised?