Hello, I have a problem with exporting dxf files to our tube bender. We make stainless steel frames for boat covers and want to program our tube bender with a dxf file that should translate automatically into a bending program in the bending machine software. The problem we have is that it doesn’t translate correct at all. What I have done (or at least what I think I have done, I’m fairly new to cad and rhino) is the following process:
digitized frame curve with a proliner 8 digitizer
export dxf to rhino (export as polylines, but can be lines & arcs)
cleaned up lines, made frame line symmetrical
exploded frame line
converted curves to arcs (straight segment should be converted to lines)
exported to dxf
Here I have tried many different settings in the dxf export options, R12 lines & arcs is the one I have been recommended to use and tried unsuccessfully.
The problem I see in our bending machine is that the software mixes up the order in which the lines and arcs are supposed to be in and also the radiuses becomes a negative value when it shoud be a positive.
The tube bending company has not worked in rhino and has given us not so good info on what the file should be like except that it should be build up step by step and not be a polyline.
Attaching exported dxf and image of export parameters.
So…it sounds like the result should be like a sequence of operations like a GCode file? But a DXF? I don’t know what you’re supposed to do about that. Does the bender not have software to take what you give them and output what they need? Seems like they’re being obtuse, metal fabrication is a bit of a black art and the way I’ve always worked with that stuff is just to show the result required, I can’t imagine ME creating a file that’s fed directly into a bender and it coming out correctly first time.
This seems to work better, thank you very much.
Joining before converting helped and also ticked the flip arc normals. Exploded the resulting curve after exporting
