Cam Lock — drill marks for cams, screws and dowels

What does this tool do?

Cam Lock stamps drill marks for knock-down fittings (cam locks, screws, dowels) onto boards that are touching: a ⌀15 circle for the cam body on the lock board, a ⌀10 circle for the pin on the mating board, a 3×50 screw groove… All of these are lines drawn on the board faces on drill layers (like ABF-D15, ABF-D10, ABF-DSIDE-3) — the tool does not cut any solid; the CNC reads the layers to drill or mill.

Use it when you need to:

Place cam-lock (minifix) positions between a vertical and a horizontal board, optionally with two ⌀8 dowels on the sides.
Mark screws (a ⌀3 hole plus a 3×50 groove) or screws with a cap (an extra ⌀10 circle).
Edit the connections you already marked: delete, flip the face, flip the leg.

Basic steps

Select the cam-lock board first (the board that takes the cam body), or start the tool and double-click that board. The tool finds the mating (pin) boards that touch it, isolates them, and turns on X-ray and color-by-tag.
On the lock board's front/back faces, red dashed anchor ticks appear at each slot position inside the real contact regions.
Hover an anchor: it turns green, with a green preview of the circles/groove to be created.
Click to mark that slot.

Red dashed anchor ticks at slot positions on the lock board's face

Hold a key while clicking:

Shift — also mark the mirrored slot on the opposite contact face.
Ctrl — mark every slot on that face at once.
Tab — flip the marked face of the lock board (front ↔ back). The ⌀15 mark always lands on the camera-facing face unless you flip it.

A ⌀15 circle on the lock board's face, a ⌀10 circle and two ⌀8 dowels on the mating board

Quick input: type /3 to set the slot count to 3; type a plain number (e.g. 80) to set the edge offset. These two values only apply to the current session — use the settings dialog to keep them permanently.

Three modes: Cam / Screw / Screw+cap

The pill row on the HUD picks the mode (each mode's name and visibility can be changed in settings):

Cam — a ⌀15 circle (default) on the lock board, inset 34 mm from the contact edge; a ⌀10 circle on the pin board's face. Turn on Wood dowel to add two ⌀8 holes 32 mm apart.
Screw — a ⌀3 hole on the pin board and a 3×50 groove on the lock board's face (layer ABF-DSIDE-3).
Screw+cap — like Screw, plus a ⌀10 circle for the cap covering the screw head.

HUD chips: Slot (slot count along the edge), Offset (edge offset, mm), Flip leg (screw modes: leg to Front/Back), Wood dowel (cam mode: toggle the two ⌀8 dowels — the choice is remembered).

Edit mode (wrench)

Click the wrench icon to enter edit mode: the tool finds every connection already marked in the model. Click to select one connection, Shift+click for several, or drag a rubber band to select a group. The icon row at the top offers: delete all, flip all faces (of the selected connections), flip all legs (screws only), and an eraser — click individual connections to delete them. In addition:

Delete / Backspace — delete the selected connections.
Tab — flip the marked face of the selected connections.
Ctrl — flip the legs (screws).

Settings (gear button)

The Cam Lock settings dialog has three tabs — Cam lock, Screw, Screw+cap — each with: the HUD display name, whether it shows on the HUD, default slot count and slot offset, lock/pin diameters, edge inset, layer names, the dowel section (enable, ⌀, spacing, layer), screw face front/back, screw ⌀, cap ⌀, screw length and offset. Save to apply, Reset to restore the defaults.

Keyboard

Click – mark the hovered slot.
Shift / Ctrl + click – add the opposite face / all slots on the face.
Tab – flip the marked face (also in edit mode).
Type /N – slot count; type a number – edge offset (mm).
Delete – delete the selected connections (edit mode).
Esc – exit the tool.

Common problems

No anchor ticks: the wrong board is picked as the lock board, or it has no real contact region with any board. Double-click the lock board again.
The ⌀10 circle is missing on the pin board: the mate was not recognised as a pin board at that slot — check that the two boards actually touch inside the slot region.
Marks on the wrong face: press Tab to flip the lock board's face before marking, or use Edit mode to flip existing marks.
Screw leg the wrong way: use the Flip leg chip (Front/Back) or Ctrl in edit mode.
Want different default diameters or layers: every diameter, offset and layer name lives in the settings dialog (gear button); the HUD chips cannot change them.