[dataway]

Hello All,

I am new to the CNC world and built my first Shapeoko CNC. I am trying to machine a pocket with a slope to it. The wood is 3/4" thick and the slope of the pocket would be from the surface down at the deepest end to .5625" leaving 3/16" of wood at its deepest point.

I have attached a screen shot from my rendering in sketchup

Any ideas would be very much appreciated.

Thank you for your help...

Regards,

John

[dataway]

I have the latest version of CamBam, that is the only one i have at this time.

[Coolant Slinger]

The through pocket can be done with a pocket mop(machining operaton). I would leave some stock then do a profile with leadin and out to finish. The slope pocket will be done with a 3d toolpath. I sugest a waterline process with a flat or square end router bit. Then a finish pass with a ballnose router bit if you can live with a radius in the corner, using a horizontal or vertical 3d process. and do the through pocket First load the 2d drawing in cambam and do the through pocket. Then open Cambam again and rename and load the model for the 3d process on the sloped pocket. You can post the .cb fileshere and someone should be able to help. Note the 2d file will be loaded in cambam as .dxf file and the 3d file will load as a .stl file. They both are saved from cambam as a .cb file.

[dataway]

Wow, thank you very much coolant slinger for your detailed response. I will work on setting up those operations and post the .cb files here for review.

Regards

John

[dataway]

I separated the pieces and have cut the through cut just fine but the slope is still giving me issues. In CamBam importing the .stl fie looked great, I setup a 3D toolpath Waterline process set with a region fill of Vertical Hatch and when i generate the tool paths it looks correct but when i run it on my cnc it just cuts a hole straight through with no slope. I am attaching my .cb file for review and any assistance...

Thank you all for your time ...

Regards,

John

[Coolant Slinger]

John,
I am not having any luck with the toolpath on your part. But, I am not the most skilled at 3D with Cambam. If you don't get any help here try posting on the forum link below. It is Cambam's forum. The guys there do a lot of 3d with Cambam and respose time is usually a few hours or less.

http://www.cambam.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=unread

Reguards,
Coolant Slinger




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[dataway]

Thanks Coolant Slinger,

I have registered on the CamBam forum and am still waiting for the admin to accept me, been a few days now with nothing from them so still waiting so I can post on that forum.

Thank you for your time and effort ..

Regards,

John

[daveCNCmachine]

Why not tilt your work peice ie blocks under one side...or in cam bam rotate the model save it making the part first then the pocket?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[dataway]

I figured out my issue with creating a pocket with a sloped bottom and wanted to share my findings with this forum.

There is a VBScript that is on the CamBam website for generating a sloped surface and you can find the info here:

CamBam reference library - Sloped Lines

Hope this helps anyone else ...

Happy Holidays to All and Thank you to those who gave me feed back on this thread.

Regards,

John

P.S. Attached a photo of the finished part showing the sloped pocket.

[Bob La Londe]

I would probably have done it with a 3D oeration rather than the plug-in, but the plugin was written because there was a high mumber of people asking to do this sort of thing. The script works, but, "Width : The width of the surface to cut. Use 0 to machine a slot. The tool diameter is not taken into account." Its a crude brute force tool.

While not exactly what you were asking about here is a 3D way to make a "pocket" with varying bottom geometry.
Simple 3D Mold Demo Using ViaCad & CamBam - YouTube