Pocket milling with bobcad

Trying to mill a pocket with Bobcad. Using a anilam 1100m post processor. I've got the drawing complete for the pocket. But the problem is the toolpath keeps exceeding the actual pocket dimensions. It seems that it's not taking the tool size into account when it computes. It's running the tool path directly on the line rather than the inside. I guess an easy way to trick it into working would be to offset the lines inward by half the diameter of the tool, but there's got to be something I'm missing in bobcad. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Or if someone has something for a 80% AR lower pocket milling, that'd solve the goal, but not the problem.

Is it the pocket roughing out or the finish profile that is going out of the pocket boundary ?

If it is the finish cut then make sure you have an offset selected in the System Compensation box as per the attached image.

Only reason I know of where the tool would go outside the pocket would be if the pocket was drawn with dotted lines rather than solid lines, dotted lines allow the cutter to cross the line.

If it isn`t either of the above then try saving your BobCAD file in a Zip file and uploading it so someone can take a closer look :D :D

P.S. Let us all know which version of BobCAD you are using eg V28 Build 2067

Regards
Rob
:rainfro: :rainfro: :rainfro:

I'm having a similar problem. I have an "O" shaped pocket with a pocket toolpath and a profile finish toolpath. The pocket cut works fine but when it does the finish cut on the inside edge of the "O" it uses the wrong compensation. Here is a plot of my geometry and various tool paths:

Attachment 385102

The red lines are my selected geometry. The light blue lines are the roughed out pocket cut leaving 10 mils material. The green lines are the Profile finish cut. Notice how the inside of the O has the finish cut on the wrong side of the red line.

I have my pocket set to Offset Pocket In and Climb Mill.

I have my Profile Finish set to System Comp Left and Machine comp off.

The arrows are the cut directions. I think if I could reverse the inside geometry direction it would solve the problem, but I don't seem to be able to do that without reversing all the other finish cut directions which just moves the problem to the other geometries. I was able to do that with an Engrave feature, but so far not with a pocket/Profile finish feature.

There's got to be a way to do this. If not I'll just have to set my pocket operation up as the final cut.

Any ideas? Thanks. Using V30.

You can easily reverse the direction of the geometry by going to the Profile Finish in your Cam Tree and Left click on "Chain Start Point", then Right click and a small list will appear, go to the middle one that says "Reverse Direction" and Left click it, the direction arrow will go in the opposite direction, now you need to re-compute the toolpath by Left clicking on the Profile Finish, Right clicking and left clicking on "Compute Toolpath", your finish toolpath will then move to the other side of the geometry.

See attached images, they were taken from V30, hope this helps :D :D :D

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/attach...d=385110&stc=1 http://www.cnczone.com/forums/attach...d=385112&stc=1

Regards
Rob

Yes that is exactly what I was doing. The problem is it reverses all the arrows, not just the one on the inner oval path, even if I explicitly select only that path first.

Never mind. I finally figured it out. I need to click on "Default Chain Start Point/Modify" and then I can click each cut path arrow independently to reverse direction. The 'modify' selection is the secret.

Reversing this tool path did indeed fix my out of bounds finish cut problem.

Thanks.

On older versions for profile finish you can use "contours"
You can use of course in newer versions too,but for your particular problem the General nailed it

hi patracy this is probably a long shot but do you still have the anilam 1100m post processor file
if you have would it be possible to send it over to me

best regards kev