[Donkey Hotey]

Does anybody know what kind of cutter path to use to do back spot-facing in X4 (I guess other recent versions should be the same)? I'm using a cutter similar in shape to a keyseat cutter. It needs to go down a predrilled hole, dead-center, do a lap or two inside the hole at a larger diameter, move back to center, then back out of the hole. I have to do this at twenty locations.

I created a basic contour cutter path, then used toolpath editor to manually move and add all of the points needed to do this. This seems very risky and required a lot of concentration on my part. Of course, this also locks the cutter path so I can't regenerate for any reason--unless I want to go back and edit one point at a time (again).

And of course, I screwed up on one of the regenerated paths and scapped an eight-hour part when the cutter pulled out of the hole without retracting to center.

There has to be a better way but, I'm not finding it.


EDIT: Never mind...I found it...Circle Mill. I expected Circle Mill to have the same options as Helix Bore. I was wrong. It returns to center like I wanted. ARRRRGGGHHH. That would have saved a valuable part.

[Superman]

If you use a 2D contour

select a point for the descend/retract position and then select the contour
so in the goemetry you have point, contour, next point, next contour, etc

in the lead in/out ---use entry point & exit point

you can do this for many situations where you may need the tool to start outside the stock boundary or in a pre-drilled hole, sometimes works with pocketing too,

[cadcam]

Greg do as superman stated. if you need a sample contact me..

toolpath Contour "point" pick the center of your hole then "chain and pick your chain at the bottom.
Then as superman stated in the lead in/out ---use entry point & exit point

[Donkey Hotey]

Thanks for the tips. Circle mill worked just fine for what I needed.

I also tried the method Superman described yesterday but, it didn't work as described (or I was doing it wrong). I'll look at it again today. Even though I'm out of the woods, I'd still like to understand this other method. It sounds like it's useful for more than just circles (entry point for pockets?).