FreeCAD CAM Tips - 7 || Cutting a sheet of plywood on the CNC || Path Workbench

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In this episode I'm showing how I use FreeCAD to cut pieces out of sheet goods, such as plywood, MDF or even wooden panels. I used the parametric approach for defining the board, which means I can change the values in the spreadsheet and the sheet updates automatically.
I define the boards or shapes (you can cut any shape you want) that I want to cut in a separate sketch, making the workflow easy and repeatable.
00:05 Creating the spreadsheet
01:02 Creating the base board (the sheet)
02:19 Making the sketch to define the required pieces or shapes
02:50 Drawing the pieces to be cut
03:34 Arranging the pieces
04:32 Making the pocket using the sketch
05:28 Making and setting the job in the path/cam workbench
05:56 Making the profile operation
06:24 Tweaking the profile operation
08:45 The workflow to cut the sheet

[@tcurdt]

Keeping the faces of the cutout is a neat shortcut. If selecting negative spaces would be possible that would be even nicer though.

[@superdau]

You don't have to change the tool diameter to "fit" in between. I think that's really messy, because it changes every operation that uses this tool. Instead just assign a negative "Extra Offset" (e.g. 0.01 mm) at the specific profile operation. The result is the same. No need for extra parameters in a spreadsheet or formulas in tool's properties.

[@opensourcecnc]

I have tried that, too. Unfortunately, that doesn't work. So for now that's the only way that I found to work. As a rule for myself, I prefer to set a tool bit in the job especially for this.

[@superdau]

@@opensourcecnc
That's weird. I just tried it again (in FreeCAD 0.21.1 on Windows) and it worked. I've also used that for a long time. But OK, if you have your workflow and you're fine with it, there's no need to change it.
It might work for other people as well though, and it is generally good to know that the profile offset feature exists as it has other use cases than making an endmill fit (like cutting a part slightly oversize, if you know that you'll sand it for example).