If I use the 2D pocket milling in a circular pocket, the toolpath is a bunch of concentric circles. What I want is a spiral from the centre out.
I believe that SC2011 will have this option, but for now I had to have a fiddle.
In other CAM software they have this option, such as mastercam, but what I had to do was this:
Now my pocket is basically a 66mm through hole. The part is 10mm thick. I drilled out the centre just a shade bigger than my cutter and then used an HSM strategy.
I used HSM - Spiral Milling. I made a surface in the CAM part which basically blanks off the bottom of this through hole, and I can use that as a 'virtual' bottom of the hole and gives me something to select as the target part.
The 66mm diameter is my constraint boundary. Tool on working area is 'internal'. Z depth limits are set just so that the tool doesn't move off the bottom of the hole.
After fine tuning here and there the tool slides into the centre hole that I drilled and then spirals out to the 66mm diameter with constant tool engagement.
Only trouble is that as soon as the tool hits this 66mm diameter it pulls out and doesn't complete the circle. This is a bit of a shame but not a huge thing as I can then come in again with a 2D profile strategy to get the job done.
Does anyone have any other idea as to how to do this?
Cheers,
Matt.