Designed to create all required geometry for routing on Female/Central/Lower Strippers.
To use this tool, it’s expected to have an understanding of Windows, and to configure this tool it’s expected to have an understanding of Settings Menus, Property Selectors and Symbol Patterns. For more information on these, please follow the hyperlinks.
The tool contains the following functions:
- Control Panel
- Opens the settings dialog.
- Process Stripper
- Processes the stripper using the current setting.
- Quick View
- Shows an outline of the tool’s final effect on the stripping board.
- Solid Fill
- Shows a filled area of the tool’s final effect on the stripping board.
Global Setup
Palettes
Critical Palette
The palette used in critical areas that are highlighted to the user.
Visualisation
Product Colour
When using the solid fill function this is the colour of the unrouted areas of the stripper.
Block Name prefix
When creating a visualisation, the extra geometry is put into a newly created block with the following prefix. For example, if you had a tool called Shallow Rout and this property was set to RoutTool_ a block will be created with the name RoutTool_Shallow Rout.
Tolerance
Tolerance
If you have problems finding the grip edge on a stripper then try increasing this value. The default value is 0.01mm.
How to use the tool
Standard Processing
Method 1
- Go to the layer in which you want to apply the routing tool paths.
- Start the Routing Dialog.
- Select the required setting from the routing menu.
- Click the Process button.
Method 2
- Go to the layer in which you want to apply the routing tool paths.
- Click the Process Stripper button.
This will use the currently active setting.
Manual Alterations
Method 1 (Brush Tool)
- Run the standard processing as described above.
- Start the Routing Dialog.
- In the dialog you will see a list of available tools.
- Click the Brush button on the desired tool and the dialog will disappear.
- Move your cursor to the area you want to change. A box showing you the area that will be affected will appear.
- Clicking on the area will change the contents of the box to the desired tool. This will only affect entities that are in the same tool group as the chosen tool.
- Repeat steps 5 to 6 or cancel the tool. Right-click and select cancel or press Ctrl and right-click to cancel.
Method 2 (Area Tool)
- Run the standard processing as described above.
- Start the Routing Dialog.
- In the dialog you will see a list of available tools.
- Click the Area button on the desired tool and the dialog will disappear.
- Move to the canvas and click on a corner location of the area you want to change.
- Move to the opposite corner of the area you want to change and click again.
- This will change all entities within the given rectangle to the chosen palette.
- Steps 5 to 7 will keep repeating until the user cancels the drag tool by right-clicking and clicking cancel or holding down Ctrl and right-clicking.
Stripper Routing Settings
Existing Product
External Palettes
Select all the palettes that are used for the external perimeter of the stripper. This includes any palette you use for the grip edge or centre notch.
Internal Palettes
Select all the palettes that are used for the internal waste areas of the stripper.
Tools
Tool Groups
Represents a list of tool groups, for example all tools that are used on the front of the stripper in one group and the tools used at the back in another group. This grouping method is used in the brush and area features to allow some routing areas to be changed without affecting other areas.
Routing
Patterns
Each routing pass on the tool is to be set up as an individual routing pattern. Each of the patterns have all the settings relevant to a single pass. Often you will find 2 or more patterns, one for the front side of the stripper, one for the back side, and possibly one for the grip edge. (See Pattern Settings for more info.)
Output
Symbol Patterns (New)
A list of symbol patterns to be applied to the stripper.
Tool Group
Each item in the tool groups is a tool group that represents a group of milling tools. A typical example is a group used for the front face of the stripper and another group used for the back face of the stripper.
General
Name
A name for the group. This is used in the status bar and in the control panel tool preview for easier identification of the group of tools.
Description
Optional description for the user to store useful notes and is shown as a tooltip when hovering over the Group name in the Control panel tool preview.
Machine Tools
A collection of physical tools that are available. (See Tool Settings for more info.) Clicking on the button at the far right of the property will open the tool editor.
Machine Tool Settings
Represents a physical routing tool.
General
Name
A user-friendly name for the tool.
Description
A useful place to store additional information about the machine tool.
Palette
The palette used for the tool path of this physical tool.
Radius
The radius of the physical routing tool used in multiple calculations. If the tool is tapered, use the radius of the tool where it meets the wood.
Figure 14 Example of 4 different tools and their radius value
Brush
Allow Brush
Defines if this tool can be used for manual adjustment to the processed tool paths. These functions can be accessed on the routing control panel.
Brush Settings
Expandable property. When using the brush tool, this is the default size of the brush. The height and width of the brush can be adjusted here, or it can be scaled on-the-fly using edit bar adjustments.
Pattern Settings
Represents a single pass for the routing tool. Multiple passes can be created, for example, a pass for the front of the stripper board and a pass for the back side.
General
Name
A user-friendly name for the routing pass used in various status messages and logging.
Tool Setup
Offset
Offsets the assigned tool from the perimeter by this value.
Figure 15: Offset value set to '0mm' (left), and greater than '0mm' (right)
Smooth offset
Enables smoothing on offset tools. Only used if the offset is greater than 0.
Figure 16: Visible on the top right corner: smooth offset enabled (left) and disabled (right)
Primary Tool
The physical tool used for this routing pattern. Please note this tool can be overridden by a mask or a narrow area setting.
Setup
Directional Angle
Often on the front routing you will want only the edges that are in the feed direction to be routed. Setting this value to less than 90deg will achieve this. An angle value can be typed in or the angle editor can be opened. The angle editor will show you a circle; only the area between the two black lines will be routed.
External Style (Updated)
Represents the areas of the stripper that will have tool paths assigned. (Directional routing is applied on top of the style.) The drop down provides a preview.
Full
The complete perimeter will have the tool path assigned.
None
No routing will be applied to the external perimeter.
Grip
Only the grip edge will have routing applied to, but excluding the wing sides.
Grip and Wing Sides
The grip edge and the sides on the wings will be routed.
Rear and sides
The rear and sides of the external edges will be routed, but not any part of the wings.
Rear, Sides and Wing tops
The rear, sides and the top edge along the wings on the external edge will be routed.
Within Extents
Used in combination with the ‘Extents Tolerance’ property. This allows only the entities that fall within the extents of the stripped area to be routed.
Design Extents (New)
Used in combination with the ‘Extents Tolerance’ property. This allows only the entities that fall on the extents of the stripped area to be routed.
Perimeter Frame (New)
Creates a simple extents rectangle around the perimeter.
Internal Style
Represents the areas of the stripper that will have tool paths assigned. (Directional routing is applied on top of the style.) The drop-down provides a preview.
Full
The complete internal areas will have tool paths assigned.
None
None of the internal shapes will have tool paths assigned.
Advanced Setup (New)
Extents Tolerance
Only used when the External style is set to Within extents. Represents how far inwards from the extents of the tool path will be considered within the extents. Similar to a padding value, this can help overcome slight tolerance problems.
Masks
A collection of mask settings that allow tool paths to be changed if a tool path gets too close to a collection of palettes. (Please see Mask Settings for more info.)
Minimum Length
Removes all individual entities within the tool paths that are below this value in length. This avoids any unwanted very short entities within the tool path.
Minimum Size (New)
When an internal shape falls below this height and width, then the routing will be removed from the full shape.
Narrow Areas
A collection of narrow area detection settings that alter the tool path when narrow/weak areas are detected. (Please see Narrow Area Settings for more info.)
Path Smoothing
When path smoothing is used, this value will state if the path has rounded or square corners.
Path Smoothing (New)
Used to prevent tools from entering narrow areas or centre notches, often used on rough cutouts.
Figure 17 Grip edge pass shown with a perimeter smoothing value of 0mm (left) and 13mm (right)
Finalise
External Cut Direction (Updated)
If a cutting direction is required, this property will define the direction of the external tool path, for example clockwise or anti-clockwise cutting.
Internal Cut Direction (Updated)
If a cutting direction is required, this property will define the direction of the internal tool path, for example clockwise or anti-clockwise cutting.
Lock Direction
When using Impact’s plotting tool optimisation, this will allow the tool path to maintain its cutting direction by locking the direction of the entity.
Mask Settings
Represents a single mask for a routing pattern. Often this is used for carry/riding knife and breakers to allow a greater amount of stripper material to help prevent the parts from falling out.
Figure 18: A mask affecting the tool path when near a breaker palette
General
Name
A user-friendly name for the mask used in various status messages and logging.
Clearance
The distance from the chosen palettes where this mask becomes effective.
Mask Palettes
A list of palettes that indicate a masked area.
Tool Setup
Mask Tool
The physical tool to use when the tool path enters the mask area. This must be a different tool from the primary tool in the routing pattern to see a result in the processed stripper.
Narrow Area Detection Settings
Represents a single narrow area detection setting. Used to switch the routing tool when weak or narrow areas are detected. It is important to order the tools by size in ascending order so that the smallest tool is near the top and the biggest at the bottom.
General
Name
A user-friendly name for the mask used in various status messages and logging.
Routing Area Setup
Critical
If enabled, the tool path is not changed but a popup message is shown to the user directing them to the area that is narrow.
Figure 19: An example message to the user in critical mode (left); the highlighted area shown on the canvas (right)
Minimum Area Size
Only narrow areas above the given value will be flagged up as a narrow area.
Tool Setup
Alternative Tool
The physical tool to use when the tool path enters the narrow area. This must be a different tool from the one used as a primary tool in the routing pattern to see a result in the processed stripper.
Clearance
The amount of space between waste apertures before it’s considered to be narrow. The calculation is shown below.
Figure 20 Example showing multiple narrow area detection. Pink text represents a clearance value
Smoothing
Rounds the edges of the narrow area to give a slightly more precise method of finding narrow areas.