New in V1.4a (June 2016)
- Bug fixes
-
- Many additions to help.
- New Features
-
- Centerline cuts: prevent retract when possible
- If doing multipass cuts, centerline cuts that form loops do not need to retract between passes since start and end point are equal.
- This applies to all cuts based on centerline cuts, centerline, fold, and pockets.
- Fast approach:
- Approach the surface using G00 to within 0.5mm, then switch to G01 to begin cutting.
This reduces cut time greatly when the safe height is relatively high, and to a lesser extent for normal safe heights.
- (This was already implemented for ramping cuts, and has now been added to non-ramping cuts).
- Very small arcs converted to lines
- Arc segments with radius <= 0.010" can cause problems with some simulators and controllers. Convert them to line segments.
Note that drawing such a small arc is almost impossible in Sketchup, but they can result from scaling a drawing, or from importing
a scanned DXF file.
- Chamfer wizard
- Tool to set cutter diameter and depth for a chamfer cut
- Accessed via Tools|Phlatboyz|Set Chamfer parameters
- Note: set the cutline AFTER using this tool, and delete and redo it if you change parameters. Generate Gcode directly after creating cut line.
- See the full HOWTO here
- Gcode Joiner
- adds default extension if not user supplied
- Number formatting
- remove trailing 0's in plunge holes to shorten lines for GRBL
- Plunge holes
- streamlined G00 moves when 'use reduced safe height' is true
- added 'force all Gcodes on' processing for spirals in plunge holes
- Laser cutter/engraver control
- Tick the Laser Control box on the
parameters dialog and G-code will be output suitable for laser cutting on a machine that uses spindle commands to control the laser.
The current control scheme replaces all Z movements (start and end of cuts) with M03 and M05 spindle motor on/off commands.
The M03 is combined with an S word giving PWM control of the laser power.
This value is set to the cut depth percentage of the current 'Spindle speed' set in the parameters dialog.
For example, if your controller accepts 10000rpm as the maximum spinde speed, then set that in the parameters dialog.
- Now, for a 100% deep centerline cut, laser on command will be
- M03 S10000
- and a 50% deep centerline cut will be
- M03 S5000
If you are using GRBL 0.9 the default max spindle speed is 1000.
If your laser only supports full on and full off and cannot use PWM, then always use 100% deep cuts (and a correctly set maximum spindle
speed as well) and the spindle control output will always be either on or off.
DO NOT select 'multipass', 'ramping' nor 'Gen3D' when Laser Control is desired.
Ramping and Gen3D will be turned off automatically.
Multipass can be used to get cleaner edges in some materials. Experiment for yourself!
Plunge holes will only create a dot at the center of the hole. The length of the delay at this dot can be
adjusted via the Hole Feature Options dialog.
- Large file load speed
- A very old version of SketchUcam (Phlatscript 0.918) used attributes that had to be upgraded for 0.919 and up.
- This upgrade checks every edge and takes a long time for large files.
- The upgrader is now turned off by default. If you have very old Sketchup files that are encoded
using 0.918 edge format (they will generate very bad G-code, if anything at all),
you need to delete all the cut lines and re-insert them.
New in V1.4 (Nov 2015)
- Bug fixes
-
- Fix for Phlatten tool.
- Since Make 2014, Phlatten has failed to actually phlatten due to not liking the order
used for deleting faces. Faces are now deleted separately from edge collection.
- Fold/centerline/pocket tool depth in VCB.
- The depth can now be set to floating point number, eg 10.6% or 34.15% etc.
- Inputbox error checking.
- All input boxes use exception rescuing to detect errors in number formats and 'retry'. This is a step on the way to
handling regionalized number formats.
- Note that a side effect of this is that the main parameters dialog will fail silently if it is given an invalid number and the
corresponding variable will not be set. For example if you type 45t for Safe Height the safe height
will not be changed AND you will not be notified.
- Joiner tool - bug in long filenames.
- When the joiner tried to create a comment from a long filename, the chunking operation failed. Replaced with .scan().
- Added features
- Make the path to the gplot program a string in options so it is preserved between versions.
- By setting a path to a program that can display Gcode files you can use any program that takes
a Gcode file as a parameter for preview.
- Tools|PhlatBoyz|Options|File options|Gcode plotter program
- set to 'default' to use Gplot.exe the default plotter
- set to the full path and filename of your choice of plotter program, such as NC-Plot.
- Multiselect pockets
- If multiple faces are selected when the pocket tool is selected, all the faces will be pocketed.
- All selected entities will be Unselected after this process.
- If only one thing is selected, nothing is done, process is ignored.
- Make sure you have the correct pocket parameters before doing the multiselect operation!
- Large plunge holes with sticky size
- Holding
down shift when clicking for a plunge hole allows you to set size, but
until now you had to do that for every hole. Now you can tap the HOME
key to set 'LARGE LOCK' on and be prompted for a hole diameter that
will persist until you select another tool or tap HOME again.
- Holes in a grid
- Select the Plunge hole tool
- Hold down ALT and select the point for the bottom left hole
- You will be prompted for the spacing and number of holes
- A grid of holes is created
- You can hold SHIFT at the same time and give a size for the gridded holes
- CounterSink/CounterBore tool
- CounterSink, extension of the plunge tool, does counter sinks at the top of holes.
- Grids and size selection same as for plunge tool.
- Depth is always overcut% - hopefully always deeper than the bottom of the countersink.
-
- CounterBore, does a counter bore on top of a hole.
- Grids and size selection same as for plunge tool.
- Depth is always overcut% - make sure it is deeper than the counterbore!
- Ramping is forced ON for the counterbore to prevent the unnecessary center drill op.
- Simple ABC axis commands

- On the Quicktools toolbar, use the rotate icon to set values for A, B and C axes, values will be output before all other motion, and zeroed after homing
- Toolchange
The T icon on the Quicktools toolbar enables the use of toolchange
commands. For controllers that understand the 'Tx M6'
command you can output the command with a given tool number. Optionally include G43 (apply offset) and Hx, select offset.
- The alternative option for controllers that do not understand T1 commands is to include a 'macro' file of Gcode commands that
achieve the tool change for you. The tool commands can include a '%s' string: this is where the tool offset is inserted.
- Activate this toolbar by ticking the View|Toolbars|SketchUcam Quick Tools item.
- Rapid approach for Z plunge
- When starting a cut, Z will now rapid down to within 0.5mm of the surface before switching to plunge feed rate in the same way that ramping does.
This should make cutting with high safe heights much quicker.
New in V1.3a (June 2015)
- Bugfix: Concave arcs on the edge of rectangle were not cut in the correct direction, causing scalloped edges.
- Pocket zigzags now use fuzzy stepover. A new stepover is calculated from the given stepover such that the zigzag always
starts and ends at the given offset from the edges. This prevents leaving large gaps at the end of the zigzag which
might break a tool in hard materials. Note that complicated shapes can still leave oversize (larger than stepover) nubs
that will be removed by the final outline pass. To mitigate this effect, use small stepovers in hard materials.
- Pocket zigzag offset (the gap between the edge of the face and the edges of the zigzag) is now related to stepover instead
of being a fixed 10%. This means that for large stepovers the cut takes less time, and for small stepovers the
final outline cut is <=50% of the stepover value. Read here for details
- Pocket tool now uses the same offset routine as the inside and outside cut tools making it much less prone to folded corners
and other artifacts.
- G-code Joiner will not output any comments if Use Comments is false. However, it will not remove comments already
in the files being joined.
- G-code Joiner now has an icon
on the toolbar.
- New 'Quick Tools' toolbar that allows you to quickly toggle the status of the
'Use Comments' and 'Comment Style' options. Using these will NOT affect the default settings set via the
Tools|Phlatboyz|Options|Machine Options
menu. Activate this toolbar by ticking the View|Toolbars|SketchUcam Quick Tools item.
NOTE that these icons have no visible effect until you output Gcode, though you will see the current status
of the setting when you hover over the icon (except in SK7).
- Bug fixes that prevented Gcode generation in Sketchup v7.
- All Gcodes and axis letters are uppercased in accordance with the RS-274-D standard.
- Tools|Phlatboyz|Options|Feature Options 'Force all Gcodes on for Marlin' will force the output of a Gcode on every line instead of the normal optimized output.
New in V1.3 (May 2015)
- Ramping: (option on parameters dialog) instead of plunging Z straight down into the workpiece, the tool will ramp down along the first segment, optionally using the given ramp angle limit.
- Set Ramp VTabs on Tool|Phlatboyz menu: this will set the ramping parameters for Vtabs so they use the ramp angle limit, do this BEFORE creating the Vtabs.
- Commenting options, switch between using () and ; so you can use whatever your controller prefers in the G-code.
- Use Comments option allows you to generate G-code with no comments in it at all.
- G-code Joiner is happy with both comment formats.
- G-code Joiner file selection remembers the folder, and remembers a change in extension. Also detects Sketchup versions
prior to Make2014 and works around the wildcard bug
- Bugfix: Polygons are now correctly identified and output as line segments instead of arc segments.
- Bugfix: 'Restore Defaults' button on parameters dialog was not metric aware and filled in incorrect values, now fixed.
- G-code lines have been shortened to be more GRBL friendly.
New in V1.2a
- G-code Joiner - on the Phlatboyz menu, this tool allows you to join 2 or more G-code files together to make a single file that
does all of the cuts in the order specified. This is handy for combining files generated from a drawing that needs seperate operations
carried out on the same part.
- Use_End_Position - on the Options|Features menu, setting this true allows you to select an ending position other than X0 Y0 for the gantry.
TIP: use in combination with the Use_Home_Height option.
- Bug fixes in the 3D G-code generator.
- 3D code that uses multipass will now stop early once all features have been cut, ie it will not
continue to full material depth if all features have been cut.
- Plunge holes are automatically grouped. This prevents underlying geometry from interfering with G-code generation.
Only an underlying horizontal line will interfere but in this case it is very easy to delete the part that overlaps the colored 'hole' line.
Ordinary holes have no name while enlarged holes are named with the diameter and depth.
For example a plain 8mm hole will be named "_diam_8.0mm" and a depth restricted 9mm hole will be "_diam_9.0mm_depth_76.0".
This implies that holes will be cut in group order so don't forget to set the order with the Group Reorder tool.
New in V1.2
- The 'Table top is Z-Zero' checkbox. If this is ticked the table top will be used as the Z zero reference instead of the material top surface. This is most useful on overhead gantry machines, and not at all useful on Phlatprinters.
- The Options Menu allows you to set default options that will be applied to new drawings. These options affect such things as your machine type (overhead gantry?) and size (default safe area), common tool settings (feed speeds), and G-code generation options.
This menu system replaces the MyConstants.rb file in a transparent way. Your existing settings will be used until you use the Options menu to change them.
- Profile file format was changed to ini format, extension .pri
- Fix for parameters tool on mac
- PhlatBones preferences file moved to profiles folder, solves write permissions issue on Win7/8
- Pocketcut: improved undo so entire pocket cut will undo in one operation
- Arcs, extra digit of precision
- 3D - removed full depth plunge at start of last multipass pass that may remove extra material
- Added Z-Zero option to parameters dialog
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