«Drilling» is the boring of holes in a part for hardware: confirmats and dowels, hinge cups, minifixes and cams, shelf supports, drawer runners. In iFurn.pro all the holes of one part are set in a single form — «Drilling». This article shows where to open it, what fields it consists of and what happens to a hole after it is added. Each parameter is covered in detail in separate articles of the section.
Where to open the form
The drilling form lives in the side panel of CNC operations of a specific part. In the parts table you open «CNC operations» for the part you need, choose the «Drilling» type in the panel — and the form with the hole fields appears. Next to the «Drilling» heading there is a «?» icon that opens this help.
Here, too, in the «Operations history» section, you can see the list of holes already added to the part: they can be filtered, edited or deleted. The «back» arrow in the panel returns from the form to the list of operations.
The fields of the form
A hole is described by a set of parameters — in the form they go from top to bottom:
- The coordinate origin — one of the four corners of the part (lower left, upper left, lower right, upper right). The X and Y coordinates are measured from it. In detail — in the article «Hole coordinates: origin, X and Y».
- «X (part)» and «Y (part)» — the position of the hole along the length and width of the part from the chosen corner. The value is entered as a number or a formula; there is a formula hint nearby.
- «Depth» — how deep the hole is bored, also as a number or a formula. Whether the hole is blind or through iFurn.pro determines itself, by comparing the depth with the part's size. In detail — in the article «Hole depth: blind or through».
- «Operation side» — where to bore: the face or back surface, or one of the four edges. The set of available sides depends on the part's material. In detail — in the article «Drilling side: face and edges».
- «Diameter» — chosen from the list of the company's real drills; only the diameters that can bore the chosen side to the given depth are shown. In detail — in the article «Diameter and the company's drilling tools».
Below come the parameters for a row of identical holes: «X offset», «Y offset» and «Number of drillings» — they place a row of holes in a single step (in detail — in the article «Row of holes: offset and number of drillings»). The checkbox «Do not reset the values when adding» keeps the entered parameters in the form after adding — handy when you need to add many similar holes in a row.
Adding and editing
The «Add» button creates a hole (or a whole row at once) on the part. If you open an already added hole from the «Operations history», the form switches to edit mode and the button changes to «Save». If the company has enabled countersinking for confirmats, an added hole can additionally be given a countersink from the face or the back side (see the article «Countersinking for confirmats»).
Holes need not be entered manually on every part: they can be copied and mirrored onto a paired part, and identical holes across the whole project can be changed and deleted in bulk through group processing.
What happens after adding
Every hole immediately goes onto the cutting map and into the part drawing, goes into the machine control program, and its cost is added to the estimate at the drilling-service rate set by the company. There is no separate «save» button for the operation — the change is applied at once, and the sizes and the calculation are recomputed automatically.