Punching holes please

Otis

Sorry TIG, I'm trying. On my example I placed a cicle exactly over the axis as I understood it from your example, then pulled it downward which I assumed meant that the face is now in the z=0 position. So are you saying to make the box first as a component/group, then enter edit and create a hole/component in situ,rather than move hole/component from outside ? I still can't get it to work that way.

TIG

When you make any shape into a component SUp places the axes at the lowest x/y/z location - you don't normally want them there for a cutting component - unless you have made it upside down You can set a component's axes in the create dialogthus
Don't worry about making the face's box a group or component - leave it as raw geometry and place your hole-components onto it - they should cut if you set its properties right [note that these are yet to be set in the last image above - Glue>Any-Face, tick=Cut-Opening]...
IF you have some faces onto which you'd like to add hole-components BUT these faces are inside a group/component then edit the group/component until you are at a level where you can select the face on its own - then you know it'll take components and that they'll 'glue' and therefore also 'cut' successfully...

Otis

OK, I made a circle, pulled it up, deleted both top and bottom faces, set the axis as shown on the top of hole with blue going up, created component with glue to any and cut opening checked. Then made box without making component. Then with move tool I moved hole component over box and it will not cut. I rotated it upside down and tried again.I really have got to get this. I've been doing well with the program execpt for this one thing. I know if I can get this I'll understand a lot more than just hole punching. Thanks for your patience.

TIG

I said before... you cannot 'move' a component onto a face that it wasn't originally placed on and then expect it to cut a hole. The 'original' component is set to cut-face='none' as it was made 'in space'...
Place a new version of the 'hole' component by inserting it from the Component Browser window - it should now cut a hole in the face... You can copy a hole that is already on a face and the copy will cut it - as a copy will 'find' the face it first 'alighted' on and so it will cut it...

Gaieus

Hi Otis,

Try this way;

create a box (on which you will place the components).
draw a circle on a face of this box
double click on this circle (so that its face and the perimeter is selected)
right click on the selection > make component.
Now notice that the gluing plane is already set and also it is set to cut a hole by default in SU.
Now double click on your newly created component (to edit it) and PushPull its circle face down to the distance of the bow you placed it onto. (You cannot really see anything at this point)
finally erase the top circle face which is still there as you have just made a tube with both beginning and ending ends filled.
Now exit your component and try to place a new instance from the component browser to see if you made it correctly.

Otis

Thanks Gaieus, it was the order of the thing that had me flumaxed. It works perfect now. Also many thanks to TIG, your patience knows no bounds.

Gaieus

As TIG pointed out above, you were probably doing it "half" correctly already - only the gluing plane was somehow reversed and you components were gluing upside down.

To be honest, out of laziness and to make it fool proof for myself, I regularly make my gluing/cutting components in the way I outlined above. As such "flat", 2D components created on a face are automatically set to glue and cut hole in SU, that's the best way to make them without error.

Jean Lemire

Hi folks.

See this SU file for ideas.

Sorry for its size.

Array of holes.skp

lapx

Hello Tig,
It's not very intuitive the way it works now, I must say. It seems to be something simple that SU can improve on.
It should be as simple as:
1)you draw cut shape in xy plan and give depth in z direction.
2)tell it to which cut plane or all.
3)locate on desired surface.
4)should be able to copy paste component to any other surface in any skp file without losing its cutting properties.
If it doesn't work this way what advantage is gained for cutting holes when you can do this already without making it a component.

TIG

Currently that's why 'reglue' tools exist...