I have no experience producing CAD files for machining. I'm trying to design a tool for use in the sign business because I can't find anything out there that will work for what we're trying to do. I have a company in town that can machine it but has to be a CAD or dxf. They even provide free CAD software for download. Since I have no experience it's easier for me to design in cd and export as dxf. I can import the dxf in their software but it takes a long time to render and points out some inconsistencies such as line intersects and such. They charge for fixing any files that are sent. I thought maybe I could post the cd file here and get some pointers in the design that would make the CAD file as easy as possible to produce.
If anyone knows of a product out there that exists already for the purpose of cutting circles from magnetic material please let me know. We print a large number of round decals at various sizes and apply the decals to magnetic material. Since we have no type of machine to cut them out we do it by hand with an x-acto or scissors. This is a time consuming and laborious task.
The problems I've found in my search for a cutter.
1. Cannot have a center pin/pivot point i.e. cannot damage center of magnet.
2. Has to have some means to find the center point. We print a thin outline for cutting. The products that I've found out there have no way to quickly find the center.
3. most of the circle cutters out there are made for paper products. Our magnetic material is very thick whereby requiring an industrial grade cutting product.
My design addresses all these issues.
A flatbed guy with a Zune or other type of cutter