Hi Folks,
I have Pro/E Wildfire 4.0 Student Edition, and I am working on building a CNC hotwire machine. I plan to cut 3D wing and fuselage shapes out of foam using a hotwire strung between a horizontal X-axis and a vertical Y-Axis. A turntable will rotate the piece, then the hotwire will move, making a cut, then stop, then the turntable will move, then the hotwire will make another cut. At the end, the shape will be faceted, requiring (Hopefully little) sanding. I am wondering if anyone knows a good way to create multiple sections about an axis and export data points along that section line (For toolpath generation later on) in an automated way? I am thinking taking a section of a fuselage along its long axis, creating points using a coordinate system attached to the datum plane used for the section, store that in a file. Then, repeat the operation with a 1 degree angular offset until the entire 360 has been sectioned and data point files created (180 degree rotation is all that is needed since the sections would be 2 sides of the fuselage 180 degrees apart each time. I would then use these data point files (With like 1000 points in them each) to create G-code for my hotwire. Any suggestions, or thoughts, or general silliness on this topic? Thanks!
-Chris
Edited by: Arbiter
I have Pro/E Wildfire 4.0 Student Edition, and I am working on building a CNC hotwire machine. I plan to cut 3D wing and fuselage shapes out of foam using a hotwire strung between a horizontal X-axis and a vertical Y-Axis. A turntable will rotate the piece, then the hotwire will move, making a cut, then stop, then the turntable will move, then the hotwire will make another cut. At the end, the shape will be faceted, requiring (Hopefully little) sanding. I am wondering if anyone knows a good way to create multiple sections about an axis and export data points along that section line (For toolpath generation later on) in an automated way? I am thinking taking a section of a fuselage along its long axis, creating points using a coordinate system attached to the datum plane used for the section, store that in a file. Then, repeat the operation with a 1 degree angular offset until the entire 360 has been sectioned and data point files created (180 degree rotation is all that is needed since the sections would be 2 sides of the fuselage 180 degrees apart each time. I would then use these data point files (With like 1000 points in them each) to create G-code for my hotwire. Any suggestions, or thoughts, or general silliness on this topic? Thanks!
-Chris
Edited by: Arbiter