Transition from no Sprutcam to Sprutcam-9
Hello, I recently acquired a new mill PCNC1100-3 & SprutCam-9 and I currently have my face in front of a firehose; that's what it feels like. I believe I got a grip on things; I've only destroyed one endmill (plunge issue), screwed a twist drill bit in a block at 91 ipm (off set issue) and broke one Haimer tip (PathPilot issue). My new prime objective is to minimize beginner breakage; with that a little help is needed.
There is a lot going on in SprutCam operations and the devil is in the details and unfortunately the manual lacks details. From reading previous posts here, there is much tribal knowledge to be learned and shared. I need to learn these details and hope this is the place. I also hope the soon to be released version 10 is the hallelujah version. Version 1-5 must have been a hoot.
I had a question, but I solved it while jotting it on this message; this forum is magic man.
Actually just wanted to introduce myself.
Uman in Merritt Island, Florida, USA
Re: Transition from no Sprutcam to Sprutcam-9
Welcome to the forum!
I did a lot of air cutting and I also cut parts in wood,much more forgiving than metal. There is a learning curve, keep the space bar handy.
I find the Max Velocity slider very handy on a new part, you can really slow things down with it.
Another thing is I always machine from a vise, it gives a bit of time before boring a hole in the table!
have fun
Re: Transition from no Sprutcam to Sprutcam-9
With no milling experience I started with a 3/4 mdf cover over table and I would screw down blocks of wood to practice on. Not much you can hurt this way.I Design simple block examples and run operations on them like drilling ,and milling with different tools and settings. After a few weeks I moved up to using a vise with a fixture plate that would get milled if I had settings wrong. It took me a few months to get confidence in what I was doing and develop a method to follow each time I used mill and even sprutcam. After a while its not as complicated and you find yourself making some complex stuff. Hang in there read the manual, play with software , run hundreds of simulations , read the manual again, do some more parts repeat and refine your skills and process.
That said I broke a hamier probe tip the 2nd day of using path pilot, just a few days ago. This is the 2nd probe in 1.5 years :( and it was all my fault, didn't check that the z axis was not selected and went y- into part, doh, there went 50$. So even with experience this can happen :) hehe I do pride myself on only breaking 2 drill bit, 2 taps, 1 ea 1/8 end mill, and now 2 probe tips in those 18 months. nock on wood.
And for the record I milled 45 minutes of air this last week setting up path pilot and learning to use it. I almost forgot what that was like and was kind of spooky going thru motions. I even had my hand on the e-stop button at start of each operation. Something I have not done in a year or so.
