[CadRhino]

I am running a part with lots of hold-down bolt heads sticking up. The tallest bolt head is .308" tall. The Part is .1875" thick and I have the G54/zero set at the top of the part.
It is mostly hole machining and 2-D contouring.
Under Parameters, I have the Z Retract Height set at .4 and the Safe Level selected at .4.
I have just broken my second new end mill with a crash into one of my bolts. See photo attached - I circled in red where the EM crashed into the two bolts.
I haven't been able to figure out what is going on. Weird thing is that I ran virtually the same program just before (just deeper hole drilling) and did not have any crashes. When I simulate it, everything looks to retract to the right height.
A few comments/questions;
1) Should I use Safe Distance instead of Safe Level?
2) Is there a way to establish a Safe Plane for the overall project that would ensure there are no random events?
3) Is the Safe Height calculated off of the bottom of the part even though zero is established at the top of the part?

Thank you for any input.

Best,
Nathan

[popspipes]

Is the top of the part set at 0?
Maybe go to .5 retract height, I always give it plenty of room on the retract height as I have clipped a few screw heads.

By how much is it hitting the screw heads?

2d contour, maybe adjust your start point to adjust the path to where it doesnt rapid over a screw head?

I had this problem in Sprut 7 waterline way back, they fixed it in subsequent versions, it was just a quirk in Sprut at the time.

Is the tool offset height correct?
In path pilot you can slow down the max velocity to a crawl to see whats going on.

just a thing or two to look at.........

[danh818]

As Pops alluded to, there are quite a few variables and things to look at. If you can post your project file I would be glad to help.

[mountaindew]

Sprut has a 6th sense and with all the room in the world it will still be line right over any fastener.
There is a couple ways to control this

1) operation parameters - transition tab- short link distance to a value above your fasteners or safe level if there is a stepover type option then set this to via safe plane also.
2) operation parameters - parameters tab -z retract height set to value above your fasteners or safe level.
both of these are important to set for most types of operations
hope this helps

Found a clip I had loaded
I tend to review each operation and look for collisions or problems. I found sput will show all the paths and you can see a low or problem one.
Even If you don't use fixtures to visualize and verify clearance you can still estimate and or see a low transition move


Note red dotted lines, I use these views to check for problems

[CadRhino]

It is weird since it ran fine for the previous run (same part but deeper holes).
I had all of the Z Retracts for the 2D countours set at .4"
Zero was at the top of the part.
It appeared to do an angular transition hitting the big scew at .15" and the small one at .05".
I changed all of f the R-retracts to 1" and ran the part with a cheap HSS E M and it worked.
I have challenges with SPrutcam not remembering inputs - I have to often put them in twice (like selecting a tool) so I will chalk this $50 problem up to a mystery.

Thanks for your help.

Is the top of the part set at 0?
Maybe go to .5 retract height, I always give it plenty of room on the retract height as I have clipped a few screw heads.

By how much is it hitting the screw heads?

2d contour, maybe adjust your start point to adjust the path to where it doesnt rapid over a screw head?

I had this problem in Sprut 7 waterline way back, they fixed it in subsequent versions, it was just a quirk in Sprut at the time.

Is the tool offset height correct?
In path pilot you can slow down the max velocity to a crawl to see whats going on.

just a thing or two to look at.........

[CadRhino]

Thanks for your input, MD.

Just so I am not getting this wrong, where do you access the operations parameters - Transition Tab?

I have been using the Z-Retract height in the Parameters section of the 2D contouring operation to establish my Z plane.

Thanks,

Nathan.

Sprut has a 6th sense and with all the room in the world it will still be line right over any fastener.
There is a couple ways to control this

1) operation parameters - transition tab- short link distance to a value above your fasteners or safe level if there is a stepover type option then set this to via safe plane also.
2) operation parameters - parameters tab -z retract height set to value above your fasteners or safe level.
both of these are important to set for most types of operations
hope this helps

Found a clip I had loaded
I tend to review each operation and look for collisions or problems. I found sput will show all the paths and you can see a low or problem one.
Even If you don't use fixtures to visualize and verify clearance you can still estimate and or see a low transition move


Note red dotted lines, I use these views to check for problems

[mountaindew]

This is a guess!
In the past using sprut 8 I noticed some strange things like this. I concluded that when I had problems it was from editing and changing operation parameters so much the data structure of the part I was working on become polluted or corrupt. I can remember fighting thread milling and defining the tool and all the settings. When I was doing this at times I had sprut doing all kinds of strange things and errors.
My solution to this was to start over from a fresh reboot of computer and sprutcam and an empty model. Then One by one load part, and carefully set operations, save and run. I had figured out all the settings by then so I could do this with no obscure setting set but not used or updated in data structure. Maybe sprut wish list would be a cleaner data structure or a file purge function many programs have this.
Anyway this problem is easy to noticed in the tool library part of program. You can edit values in one window , they are even saved , but if you look in other window with different format the value was not changed. If you use the tool in an operation, sometimes it worked fine and other times it didn't.

Clip of settings I check or use to control what the tool does moving around the work area.
Attachment 276994

Just an added note I use fixtures like you see in this clip and sprut will avoid them when doing operations. It will NOT avoid fixtures when rapid moving or transitions between areas and in fact as noted above it will go right at em .

hope this helps

[CadRhino]

Thanks MD.

You are right.

Apparently the only way to ensure a real safe plane is by adding the fixtures. SC will make its own decisions even if one has the Z Retract heights all set the same (high) it will ignore some of them but if there is a fixture drawn in, it will respond.

Best,

Nathan.

This is a guess!
In the past using sprut 8 I noticed some strange things like this. I concluded that when I had problems it was from editing and changing operation parameters so much the data structure of the part I was working on become polluted or corrupt. I can remember fighting thread milling and defining the tool and all the settings. When I was doing this at times I had sprut doing all kinds of strange things and errors.
My solution to this was to start over from a fresh reboot of computer and sprutcam and an empty model. Then One by one load part, and carefully set operations, save and run. I had figured out all the settings by then so I could do this with no obscure setting set but not used or updated in data structure. Maybe sprut wish list would be a cleaner data structure or a file purge function many programs have this.
Anyway this problem is easy to noticed in the tool library part of program. You can edit values in one window , they are even saved , but if you look in other window with different format the value was not changed. If you use the tool in an operation, sometimes it worked fine and other times it didn't.

Clip of settings I check or use to control what the tool does moving around the work area.
Attachment 276994

Just an added note I use fixtures like you see in this clip and sprut will avoid them when doing operations. It will NOT avoid fixtures when rapid moving or transitions between areas and in fact as noted above it will go right at em .

hope this helps