[Steven Konecny]

Another thought about System Holes, as they relate to drawer slides. (I’ll get it right from now on!)

I just came across an instance where I don’t want the drawer box to extend as far back as possible. Might be nice to have an override for the box length, too. I see it pulling directly from the “Drawer Depth” column on the Drawer tab and displaying the possibilities available as a drop-down selection.

I see this showing up if you’re drilling with a “Drill my first hole using an offset” method, where you mark the front of the cabinet (or panel edge). Since it already knows the cabinet depth, it could exclude all the options that would extend beyond the back panel (or first obstacle, like a side panel if you’re making a non-standard opening from the side of a cabinet), and only show the lengths that would fit. This would also come in handy if avoidance logic was just too much to develope easily. This could be a quicker solution to deploy (although Joe is pretty darn good at this, it could be a non-issue for him).

If you we’re using the story stick to mark with a “Drill my first hole here, on-center” method, the other end of the stick could be used to mark the maximum box length. In this case, you wouldn’t need an offset dialog, or a box length override.

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Ah ha! I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what you were calling all those holes… As you can tell, I guessed on the terminology there. Hopefully you get the gist of what I was going for.

I really love your software and want it to be successful. If you or Joe want to call on me for more brainstorming, or just clarification of an idea, I’m at your disposal. And, I won’t feel bad if you take these, twist them around, and come out with an even better solution in the end. Use them for a launching pad, or toss them in the round file… I’m all for the best possible outcome for everyone.

Best Regards,
Steve Konecny

[Steven Konecny]

Hurrah for Joe!! 😉

[Steven Konecny]

Oh, one more thought on the story-stick thing.

When you draw walls, ctrl and alt make it do different things. This could similarly be used to switch between a system hole and a drawer slide hole. Maybe alt makes an icon with a double-sided arrow (instead of a red triangle) for a system hole, indicating it draws a circle on two faces. For a drawer slide it’s a small single sided arrow, indicating a hole only on one face.

Joe, my wife says I’m full of it all the time. This must be what she means. I’m just full of ideas today! 🙂

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Thinking about this a little more…

Maybe the story-stick concept could be further utilized here. Like when placing a cabinet, pressing command(mac) or control(PC) changes what the marking tool is doing. This could be used to switch between “Drill my first hole here, on-center”, to “Drill my first hole using an offset”. I see this applicable to both System and Drawer slides; more so for slides, as you may want the software to determine the system hole setbacks from the edges.

This would allow you to Start by pushing a “Drill Holes” button, and end with pressing the “END” key, like we already do with cabinet layout. This reinforces the existing process, and leverages it for a related process.

Just a thought.

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

But the lumber will still be oversized in Cutlist Plus? Only the sheet goods will be actual size? Is that correct?

Thanks,
Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Ah ha. You are right, I completely missed that.
Problem solved!!

Thanks,
Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Hi Joe, Greg,
Thanks for the suggestions. I guess I have a more basic problem, then. When I change that attribute, it doesn’t appear to do anything when I redraw the cabinet. I even made it really big, like 3″, so I would be sure it was doing something, but I still don’t see anything. Maybe I’m looking at the wrong thing?

The trim piece in the post above is something I drew manually. I shortened the base, then simply added that piece to the cabinet. Which I can totally do; but, I would have to do it to every box. I was hoping I could avoid having to make all those changes, then also needing to add data so cutlist can deal with it, too.

Thanks, and sorry for the confusion,

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Hi Joe, I emailed back just a little while ago.

I think I found the problem. The 28″ side mount slide will fit in a 702mm deep opening, the next slide down, the default 27″ Blum undermount slide says 709mm. I think that was throwing it off. I think the software is looking at the first column to determine the longest possible slide that fits, rather than the last column, like I was thinking.t

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Thanks Greg,
I’ve already restarted that file a few times since I ran into that particular problem. I’m taking pretty big bites right now, so I might need to slow down and master some of the easier stuff first.

I will say the learning curve is pretty small if you’re a Sketchup user. I’m finding most of this fairly intuitive.

Before I go… I just tried to reproduce the problem I had before, but I’m getting an entirely different problem now. I am making a short cabinet, in between some others (for the chop saw). When I select the Drawer Bank Base with 2 Drawers, I get an error message that says “Dimensions is smaller than permitted.” I get this message twice, after clicking on OK the second time, it attempts to draw a cabinet, but it doesn’t finish, and puts part of the cabinet way off to the side, and rotated 90 degrees.

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[Steven Konecny]

Thanks Greg,
I’m still getting my head wrapped around the basics right now. But, based on your response in another thread, it seems like I could just draw the holes for the slides in Sketchup faster. Of course, if I’m drawing the holes, I’ll be able to see right away if I’m going to hit a hinge; I could move those pretty easily, if needed.

Thanks,
Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Thanks Greg! I’ll take a look a those videos, too. My head is exploding with new knowledge; I’m not sure if that’s good, or bad.

I don’t have too much on my schedule the next few weeks, so I’m going to run this system through it’s paces and crank out some cabinets for my chop saw wall. Varying depths, heights, doors and drawers, so I should have a chance to try most of what I might run into on a real job.

Thanks again,
Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Thanks Lynn,
I found your post after looking through the forum a little.
I use Vectric software, too, but I’m not all that great at editing the files inside VCarve. I primarily use it to import DXF’s from something else, make toolpaths and nest parts. I am, however, pretty familiar with Sketchup and Fusion 360. I find the layout and measuring tools in VCarve to be so lacking, I actively avoid making changes to drawings with their software. I’m sure it’s something I could learn, but, meh.
If I can use Sketchup to draw the holes, that would work out better for me; I already have tons of Sketchup hole templates that I can simply merge into the part. I can move the holes to a drilling layer in Vcarve after importing the DXF easy enough, assuming it will include the changes I make.
Sure would be awesome if I didn’t need to do so much cleanup work, though.

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Sorry guys, I keep running into dumb questions here.
On to video 3 now. This is where I think the lack of a Per Cabinet Attributes window is creating a real problem for me. I’m around the 6:45 mark in the video, at the refrigerator upper cabinet creation. Without that per cabinet dialog, I can’t seem to be able to change the depth of the cabinet, nor it’s height, so I end up with this funky looking thing sticking out from the wall.

Steve

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[Steven Konecny]

OK, maybe I didn’t install this correctly.
I went ahead and chose Drawer Bank Base, picked 3 drawers, left the rest unchanged and clicked OK. At this point I would have expected it to place a cabinet. But nothing happens. I see 4 red triangles on the floor, like it’s expecting me to press the “END” key. Pressing the “END” key does indeed bring up the Box Selector dialog box again. I tried doing the same thing (choose cabinet type and # of drawers), and again, nothing happens.

Hoping this is a simple fix. I have time this weekend to power through these videos, but next week I have to make cabinets and do installs the following week so I won’t be able to finish trying out the software before the trial expires.

Well, not sure what I did wrong. I decided to start the video over, with a fresh project file. Closed Sketchup, deleted the old project and made a new one. This time the cabinet appeared after clicking OK. So, I must have done something that caused a hiccup. However, I’m still not getting the “Per Cabinet Attributes” dialog box.

Steve

• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Steven Konecny.

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