15. Appendices

15.1 Keyboard shortcuts

Everywhere:

In all numeric fields:

In the Design tab, a value set with the arrows is applied with Enter or Tab, and the field keeps the focus; in the Wing, Sections, Views, Assembly and Cutting tabs, it applies at once. The fields of a window (Insert shape, Manual movement) are read at the moment of the action: OK, GO.

Design tab:

2D editors of the Sections and Views tabs:

On macOS, Cmd replaces Ctrl and Option replaces Alt.

15.2 Mouse gestures

In the 3D views:

Selecting points in Design:

In the 2D editors: dragging a point moves it, a double-click on the curve inserts a point, selection works as in Design (click, Ctrl, Shift, box), the mouse wheel zooms, the right or middle button pans the view.

15.3 Glossary

• Approach, return: the paths that take the wire from its storage position to the first point of the cut, and from the last point back to storage.
• Block: the raw piece of material, defined by its margins around the part, its thickness and its position on the table.
• Calibration (of a material): the two kerf measurements, at the cutting speed and at half that speed, that make the compensation possible; (of an image): its scale in millimeters per pixel.
• Chord: the width of a profile; in Design, the X dimension of each side.
• Dihedral: the vertical offset between the two sides.
• Document: a two-path cutting project, in the workspace.
• Dressing: running the wire along the faces of a block to make them flat and square.
• Element: a wing, a volume in segments or a volume from views, in the workspace; also, in the Wing tab, a spar, a hinge, a sheeting, a kerf or an X leading edge.
• G93: the G-code mode in which the feed is given as inverse time, which makes the four axes finish together.
• Guillotine: a straight cut, vertical, oblique or in slices, with no project.
• Intermediate exit: a horizontal out-and-back move out of the block during the cut, with a stop point, to clear an offcut.
• Intermediate profile: the section computed between the two sides, at a given distance.
• Junction (path): a segment traveled without kerf compensation, in both directions (the entry of a spar, a bridge to a hollow).
• Kerf: the width of material vaporized by the wire; its compensation offsets the path by half a kerf.
• Lead-in: the short vertical path by which the wire enters a sheet above a part (Sections).
• Panel: a portion of wing between two ribs.
• Rib: a wing section; in the Wing tab, the profiles that bound a panel.
• Section (Sections): the drawing of one face of a segment.
• Segment: a slice of a volume, bounded by two sections.
• Sheet: in Sections, the raw piece of a given thickness on which several segments are nested.
• Shim: the thickness placed under a block to raise it.
• Side 1, side 2: the two ends of the wire, each with its path; in blue and in red in the software (P1, P2).
• Spacing: the distance between the two cutting planes, the width of the block.
• Station: the position along the axis of a volume (Sections, Views); in the Views tab, an X position shared by points of the two views.
• Stop point: a point where the cut pauses until the operator resumes it.
• Storage (of the wire): the position of the wire at rest, in its groove below the level of the table, where all the cuts start and end.
• Sweep: the horizontal offset between the two sides.
• Synchronization: the point-to-point matching of the two paths, so that the wire passes through the points with the same number at the same time.
• Twist: the rotation of a rib relative to the previous one.
• Workspace: the content of a .hw4x file: its documents, its elements, its assembly, its images.

15.4 Troubleshooting

The interface is not detected. Check the USB cable and the power supply of the board, and that the serial port driver is installed (the port must appear in Device Manager). Close any other software that might be holding the port (a G-code sender, a serial monitor); the other way round, the Release the port button of the configuration window releases the port for another program without quitting HotWire4X. Run Find interface again.

The status dot turns red during work. The USB cable has been unplugged or the link has been cut (the tooltip says “Controller disconnected on …”): plug the interface back in, then Find interface (chapter 6).

The startup screen shows “Do not match the last machine used” next to Parameters. The interface is recognized but its settings differ from those of the active machine: open the machine configuration, check that the active machine is the right one, switch to Modify / Test and run Transfer & Test (chapter 6). An interface that has served on a CNC mill or a laser engraver often has incompatible settings (units in inches, laser mode), which the transfer corrects.

Cutting is disabled although the interface is green. Direct cutting and export require an active license (chapter 16); the simulator stays free.

The Cut button refuses to start. An amber dot (board settings different from those of the machine) blocks the cut: run Transfer & Test (chapter 6). Otherwise, the “Cut not physically possible” window lists the reasons: a carriage speed above the maximum speed (move the block closer to the side of the large cut, or find an intermediate position that balances the two sides), a path that leaves the travel (reposition the block, Auto), a wire longer than the machine’s maximum because of the sweep or the dihedral, and, on IPL5X, a segment too fast to be traveled without acceleration (chapter 5).

A message in red mentions a skipped kerf offset. Two points of the path are coincident or too close for the algorithm: run a cleanup in Design (chapter 4), then go back to Cutting.

A DXF imports empty or with missing paths. Check that the drawing is in 2D, that the entities are on a visible layer, and that the automatic cleanup is not too strong (settings, chapter 3). Text must be converted to paths before the export.

A profile imports the wrong way round or in the wrong place. The leading edge must be on the right (Xmax) and the trailing edge on the left: the mirror button of the viewer flips the profile before the import; Design then offers the symmetries and the reversal of the direction.

The two sides do not have the same number of points. The cut and the Stops mode require paths of the same length: synchronize (chapter 4). The warning banner of the Cutting tab says so.

A direction of the pads is grayed out, or “Move refused” is shown. The wire position is declared in the Manual movement window, and this move would take the wire out of its zone, the work area or the storage groove: a wire in the groove, for example, must first leave it vertically. If the position shown is not the right one, declare it again, or choose Clear (unknown), which checks nothing (chapter 5).

A double-click on a .hw4x file does not open it, and the window already open simply comes back to the front. The software runs only once at a time: a second launch brings the open HotWire4X to the front, without loading the file. Open it from File ▸ Open project…. If the software no longer responds, end it from Task Manager, then restart it.

The software opens with the wrong folders. The data folder is chosen in the settings (chapter 3); if a moved folder is no longer accessible (drive unplugged), the software goes back to the default folder in Documents.