[naPS]

Wow, first off, let me say I'm glad we have this forum here on cnczone! I'm not too fond of Yahoo! groups.

Anyhow - here's my questions.

I have a piece of stock that's 3" x 3.5" x .5". I want to cut it down to 2.8" x 3.3" x .4" using a 1/2" endmill. The problem I am running into is that meshcam is not generating the cuts on the sides to get the 3" x 3.5" dimension down to a 2.8" x 3.3". If I increase the stock size to something over the length / width of the part plus 2 endmill diameters, it will generate the toolpaths. I'm assuming this is a limitation in the program right now that I have to do some tricks to compensate for. Am I correct in thinking this? Right now, I generate the toolpaths using the larger stock, and then just offset my tools location in Mach3. It does a couple of cuts in air, but it gets the job done.

Second question involves tool changes. Right now, it does not appear for there to be a way for me to perform tool changes. Is this correct? If I want to simulate a tool change right now, I basically have to make a different drawing to import into MeshCAM showing only the features I want cut with that tool. Is this correct as well?

Thanks!

[ger21]

1) It's not really a limitation, it's just not what it was designed to do. You'd be better off resizing your stock using a simple 2D .dxf drawing and 2.5D CAM program. You'll end up with a fraction of the code, and it'll run a lot faster.

2)You can use different tools for the roughing, finishing, and pencil machining and MeshCAM will do the tool change for those tools. Maybe you need to use a different post processor?