[originator]

I have migrated from V20 this week and have a few simple questions if someone can point me in a direction to solve these issues.

1. When creating a toolath array or translate, it seems like each ner copy becomes married to the previous ones, so that you cannot just copy a single toolpath to another location after an array or translate has been used on a toolpath. BTW, attempting to Save Feature, then reload, nothing comes back. Seems like it is required to re-select the geometry, then recompute, which sort of negates the purpose of copy and paste of the toolpath if you have the select geometry all over the board again and recompute?

2. On V20, I can select a bunch of points, hit arc snap, and place all the arcs at once. This seems to be replaced by a manual one a time placement with preview option. Can this be used like before?

3. I cannot find where to set a default rapid plane. When selecting Mill 2 axis, the second page shows rapid of .2 always, I do not know what feed plane is, as I always worked before with a simple rapid plane of .5 so the tool moves over hardware. I would like to set the rapid one time and leave it. Possible?

4. In V20, there was a a feature called pocket, that contained a spiral "clean". I could select an arc, choose step over distance, include or exclude contour, and it would create the spiral. In V26, that is gone, but I see a spiral, that must include a Z depth else the app crashes every time I try to set Z to 0, with z to any number the spiral is a helical spiral, not a flat spiral like V26 "clean". I also see the obvious pocket features on V26, but it does not to the spiral, it does an arc, moves outward does another arc etc, which is slightly slower I think versus the old clean.

I am sure there is more to come, but these are first to address.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[aldepoalo]

1. When creating a toolath array or translate, it seems like each ner copy becomes married to the previous ones, so that you cannot just copy a single toolpath to another location after an array or translate has been used on a toolpath. BTW, attempting to Save Feature, then reload, nothing comes back. Seems like it is required to re-select the geometry, then recompute, which sort of negates the purpose of copy and paste of the toolpath if you have the select geometry all over the board again and recompute?

A: You can create a tool path patter for a single feature or the whole setup. Sub vs sub in sub.

B: Save and load features or copy and past feature is used to load the tool path features settings, not the geometry it goes with. You will need to select what geometry the feature goes with.

2. On V20, I can select a bunch of points, hit arc snap, and place all the arcs at once. This seems to be replaced by a manual one a time placement with preview option. Can this be used like before?

No, you are correct! You need to draw an arc at every point.... Now in order to drill these holes you do not need an arc drawn. You can use a point, arc segment or a whole arc...

3. I cannot find where to set a default rapid plane. When selecting Mill 2 axis, the second page shows rapid of .2 always, I do not know what feed plane is, as I always worked before with a simple rapid plane of .5 so the tool moves over hardware. I would like to set the rapid one time and leave it. Possible?

There are 3 plans in V26.

Clearance plane
Rapid Plane
Feed Plane


Attachment 225476

Remember this? Our planes work more like this now, but as a global setting that can be changed the feature level.

Clearance plane is the safe position at start and end and between features. This value is set at the machine setup

Rapid plane is the position the tool goes between cuts when it rapids. This value is set at the feature level
Feed Plane is the position above the cut depth that the tool starts feeding from. This value is set at the feature level.

These values are "hard coded" for defaults, so you will need to change them as needed. I think if you save a feature or copy a feature these settings

4. In V20, there was a a feature called pocket, that contained a spiral "clean". I could select an arc, choose step over distance, include or exclude contour, and it would create the spiral. In V26, that is gone, but I see a spiral, that must include a Z depth else the app crashes every time I try to set Z to 0, with z to any number the spiral is a helical spiral, not a flat spiral like V26 "clean". I also see the obvious pocket features on V26, but it does not to the spiral, it does an arc, moves outward does another arc etc, which is slightly slower I think versus the old clean.

Clean circle is a great feature! We lost it for a few version and almost added it back in, but we found we didn't need to. Using the adaptive tool path, it will spiral out on a circle similar to the clean circle you are used to, you should give it a try!