Stock Removal

Hello Everyone,

I have been teaching myself solidcam over the last 6 months or so and have figured out how to do most of what i need. It is relatively easy to use solidcams preset operations but i am consistently frustrated by my desire for higher control of the process. At this point i am dealing with simple enough issues that i can splice in manual code to achieve my goals. However, i dont believe those cheats will be possible and definitely not efficient with more complicated tool paths.
So, i have finally decided to ask for help. Please be kind to my sorry dumb butt.

The first problem i have is how to remove the Stock.

For example; i have a 4" square block and would like to machine off all of the material around my part at the machining level.
See attached picture.
the first level is roughly 2" square and i have a 1" endmill profiling the part.
The second level is a deeper cut and i would prefer to have all of the previous level removed before starting.
I could manually write code to remove the excess stock but i would prefer to do it all in the software.
Especially considering that the origin of the part is located within the stock instead of on the corner of the stock that i indicate off of.

Is there a way to remove all of the stock at a given machining level?
i assume there must either be a setting or a way to select a chain around the stock as well as the part but i haven't been able to figure out how.

When you are defining the stock, there is a button that says "add box to solid model". This will add a box the shape of the stock to the model, so it can be selected. Alternatively, you can just quickly sketch a 2d rectangle or circle on your part, then hide it after you are done so it's not in the way.

To tell the imachining or pocket operation to remove the stock, define the geometry for the operation, and select your stock outline as geometry, right click in on the operation tree, then "mark chain as open". Now select the part geometry, and you've got it set up to remove the stock between the open chain and the closed chain(s).

Make sure to set wall and floor offsets in the operation so you aren't running the roughing pass right on the final geometry. I always go down to the technology tab, then go over to the open pocket tab, and tell it to "approach from outside", then on the "countour" tab make sure it's starting from outside. This will make sure the tool is removing the outside stock as it moves in, instead of making a slot to the final geometry and spiraling out.

For the level just set the level you want it to run at on the levels tab.