[quarky42]

EDIT: Okay, so I'm not sure what I did, but I finally got it to mill the upper step. Part of the problem was lowering my step down size, but I had tried that before and it didn't work. When I use roughing and a step size of 0.1" it still leaves a VERY thick floor on the bottom step. I'll try another type of milling and see what it generates, but if someone could play with this and give me an idea of what works best, my goal is to leave a 0.005" after the first pass and then change to another endmill for finishing the last bit.

I have a 3d model of some very simple stepped vise jaws. Instead of having a single step, they have two steps. First I modeled them individually, but then I Boolean Unioned them together because I realize that I might as well just treat them as a solid block as they are going to be tightened and milled together.

When I go to generate the toolpaths using my selected 1/4" roughing endmill that is fully setup in inches, I wind up getting a tool path that only cuts out the bottom "cup" for the lower step. It doesn't generate anything to cut out the second higher step.

Could someone help me figure out what is wrong or what I'm doing wrong? I admit that this is my first part to process through CAM and either MadCam or I am failing miserably. This seems like it should be so simple and it should work very easily, but I've spent several nights on this and made almost no progress on it. When I watch the videos, they make it look so simple. First I selected the part for toolpath calculation, then I selected the roughing end mill that I setup in the inches side of the tools (having to select the damn inches folder every time manually is annoying, but oh well.) Next, I tweak the Box allowing extra room for the end mill to move at the end of the Y-Axis and I set my floor and ceiling clipping planes. Then, I created the stock material and set it as the Model Stock. Finally, I try to generate some 3D tool paths and I'm only getting about half of what I expect as output.

I've setup Rhino using the parameters found in the help file and I've watched all manner of youtube videos that make it looks so simple for generating toolpaths, yet the paths I'm getting don't actually mill out all the areas they should.

The bottom pocket is something like 0.34" wide and the end mill is 0.249" wide. The higher step is even wider so it's not like there isn't enough room for the end mill. Any help in figuring out what I'm missing would be appreciated. I've checked for the latest updates for both Rhino and MadCam and have the latest 64bit versions installed on my Windows 8.1 computer. Is there any other information I can provide to help you help me?

For the record: I've tried all manner of 3D toolpaths and the closest I've gotten is milling along curves that I drew, but that seems like such a long way to do it. I feel like I should be able to use either the rough milling or the z level finishing as I'm only targeting between 0.15" and 0.25" depth of cut at a time. I've included my defined tool (in inches) in the zip file as well. I'm using conservative feeds and speeds pulled from GWizard for 6061 T651 Aluminum. I would really like to know why it is only generating the lower step half of the toolpath and not the upper step.

[quarky42]

Followup: Roughing and Z Level finishing results in something a little better, but I still have a huge amount of material that isn't being milled in the bottom step and it does some goofy stuff in the middle of the cuts where it raises up and plunges down instead of just milling mostly along the Y axis as I would expect it to with a little bit of X travel depending on the path. Either way I'm still not getting a good first pass out of it.

Edit: this was the best I was able to do tonight. (if you run the simulation, I think there is still more material left after the second tool than there should be.)

Edit: I've updated the attachments on this post and included a screenshot of the toolpath and the result of the simulation. Why do the sides of the finishing pass have that slope? I did a z-pass for finishing, do I have to do a profile pass for finishing also?

[quarky42]

After working on it the rest of the night, adding 2 roughing operations and 3 finishing operations (Z Level, Planar and Pencil) I still have very questionable output in the simulation. The upper level seems to have a highly angled wall. You can see it in green in the attached pictures. I don't know what is causing that.

I also shot a video while the simulation was running:
Dropbox - 20150531_010107.mp4

The simulation flies by even on the slowed speed.

The first two roughing operations leave 0.005" of material.

The last 3 finishing operations are set to not leave any material and they have much smaller steps.

Any info on what causes that really weird angled wall (semi-vertical) in green on the upper level of the vise jaws seen in the attached pics / video?

[quarky42]

I've tried the remachining version of Z, Planar and pencil. It might have made a small difference, but not much. I'm at a loss for why the vertical walls of the cut out part of the vise steps are so slanted...


EDIT: I've heard back from madCAM. They said my toolpaths were good / vertical and that it was their simulation that is inaccurate on vertical surfaces. They said that horizontal surfaces are far more accurate. I wish I had known this before I sunk many hours into trying to figure out what was wrong.

[svenakela]

The simulation is just an approximation so to speak, it's not meant to be used for measurements. If you want to make sure your toolpaths are OK you should measure between the surface and the toolpath polyline in a Rhino view.