Linear Sketch Patterns causing very high regeneration times

Edgar_aspLED

Hello all,

The majority of my designs in Onshape are for designing toolpaths for a CNC mill.  The patterns we're making are very tightly spaced lines, all approx 5mm apart, with the final patterns almost looking like graph paper and then exported as a DXF for our CAM software. For smaller patterns it doesn't seem to cause too many issues, but if we have to do a pattern that is meant for a larger product (like 5-7 feet long and 2-3.5 feet wide), it's taking Onshape very long times to regenerate, even sometimes completely freezing and spitting out error support codes.  Is there a less intensive way to get this type of pattern without causing the high regeneration times?  I don't ever need to extrude or make multiple parts so I'm only using various sketch layers for certain aspects, then using the Use option to project all the sketches to a single sketch which I then export out to DXF.

I've attached an example of a finished toolpath pattern which is 12 x 12 inches.  

NeilCooke

You'd have to insert it into a drawing and export from there. But the feature would also need to be modified to include the tool motion at the ends.

NeilCooke

It's not surprising - sketches should be kept simple with only a handful of entities. Your sketch is having to solve hundreds of simultaneous equations to solve that. It's a prime candidate for a custom feature, something similar to this one: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/812383b6012526bce6bdfff9

Edgar_aspLED

That wire mesh feature would be very useful for my CAD work.  While it visually does what I will need it to do (mostly), I'm not seeing any way to be able to export that mesh into a DXF.  And unfortunately, trying to project that mesh into a new sketch causes the issue again.  Is there any way to export a mesh from that custom feature?

NeilCooke

You'd have to insert it into a drawing and export from there. But the feature would also need to be modified to include the tool motion at the ends.

nick_papageorge073

Why in the world are you generating tool path motion in CAD instead of in CAM? That's the entire function of CAM.