So last night I received an email from a Ponoko staff member mentioning that I should be prepared that my laser cutting job is not going to be pretty. After looking at the objects he mentioned being messed up I’m realizing it’s going to be pretty ugly all over.
Almost every place that there happens to be a circle there are between 10 and 20 duplicates. The staff guessed that the layout had been imported from another program before getting finished in the layout software I used. Their guess is that conversion added all the extra elements.
The good news is that I can systematically go through and delete elements until there are none left and then undo the deletion on time to get a single object back. Due to being in a rush to meet the deadline for the voucher giveaway I didn’t test for dupes / double lines as well as I should have and missed all the circles and a couple spots on some of the vector text because I was more focused on all the connections of the various pieces touching each other.
The good news is the making cost is going to be 1/10th to 1/20th the original cost at this rate! The bad news is I’m going to have to wait another two weeks probably….
So why did this happen? Originally this was designed for a CNC process against a piece of metal. When I converted to trying to make this using Ponoko’s laser cutting service it needed adjustments when I imported the data file. My assumption is fr a CNC machine this would start in one location, mill around the edge of the circle and then drop .1 mm I guess. It would then mill around the edge again and drop again and again and again until it made it all the way through the material. The software used that process and generated a dxf file with those paths in it. When it came into the software I had to use to finalize it for use @ Ponoko many of the shapes I replaced. I didn’t replace the circles and one area of vector text.
At this rate it might be worth upgrading to the Prime account this month to submit the replacement file to get fast turn around and lower per minute costs on the laser for the prototype. Then when I get it back and review the results I can make some adjustments and remake or finish the remaining parts and another project quickly and get it all done in the same month cheaper.
After several hours of deleting duplicate circles I’ve chopped 1/2 of the making cost off. I’ve still got a bunch more work ahead of me but it’s getting to a point where I will likely want to go through the full “pre-flight” check in illustrator trying to delete pieces one at a time and then search for random anchors and duplicate curves. From everything I’ve seen all of the dupes are curves while the straight lines are fine.
After many hours of trying to clean it up and barely getting through it I came to an epiphany moment of sorts. I realized the drawing software allows me to drag a circle over-top the existing circle and it will snap to the exact dimensions. I can then move the new circle several mm to the side and then I can easily delete everything under it and then move the new circle the same number of mm back. I then promptly made quick work of the rest of the corrections and upon checking it out on Ponoko I found that the price of the material is almost the same as the making cost now (only a few dollars more added for the making side). That seems to be much closer to what it probably should be.
There are a few places that seem to have “stray anchors” that seem to linger around when I delete the various parts testing everything to see if it’s ready for making. The odd thing is they do not appear to be floating around loose and only are accessible when I delete the lines. It’s as if they are attached to the lines but as soon as I delete the part then the anchors won’t go with them like they do in other places.
I also discovered that the fan I ordered (that arrived a few days ago) to ventilate the case does not fit the cutout properly. I’m thinking the fan I have has some non-standard screw spacing because I’ve found templates for fans in data sheets all over the place that all seem about the same but this one doesn’t line up. There are no data sheet available when I ordered it so I guess this is good that I get to redo the job anyway.