[MargoCNC]

Ok, got the latest V4 loaded.

In a nutshell (and I do mean a nutshell) if you run the first pass of the advanced rough in the simulation, stop, save stock, then load the stock into the stock wizard, this will eliminate a majority of the air cutting moves for additional Advanced Roughing feature passes. This leverages the fact the Advanced Rough will always optimize the toolpath based on the "stock".

This is advanced usage of BobCAD. I played with your file for about an hour and I saved 42 minutes of machine run time by tweaking the toolpath just a little. This time is probably a bit exaggerated because I am working in "Demo" mode and not the full version of V4.

The machinist side of me says to reduce your "intermediate" steps from 10 to 5. This will save 21 minutes (or 7%) of your machine time alone.

With the "advanced" usage I can trim the cycle time almost an hour with just a fairly simple change but it is complex to explain how I would do it.

Attached are 3 screenshots. The first is your original toolpath and cycle time. The second is your original toolpath and a "intermediate:" setting of 5 instead of 10, the third is 2 Advanced rough toolpaths at the "intermediate" setting of 10 as you originally programmed but optimized by refreshing the stock after the first cut.

It would take a bit of time to explain what I did but here are the results of what I would do to improve the cycle time.

Damn dude thanx for all the efforts!!

Basically in a nutshell, bobcad just doesn't "cut it" in their machining from stock.

I can see where you are going with the setups. Each initial depth is broken into an operation, ran through Sim, save .stl, load .stl for new initial depth, and so on......

That's a helluva work around, but seems to work good enough.

Just switched from 1CNC to bobcad, not totally impressed with it, but the pros out weigh the cons so far. Just need to figure out and learn some new work arounds for it.

1CNC has better toolpaths and their machine from stock automatically took slices at each initial depth to create the boundaries.

I ended up creating new surfaces to pick as geometry to limit air cutting, one the pros, being able to work right inside of sldwrks.

I have a beer high in the air for you my friend!!

Thanx

[SBC Cycle]

Damn dude thanx for all the efforts!!

Basically in a nutshell, bobcad just doesn't "cut it" in their machining from stock.

I can see where you are going with the setups. Each initial depth is broken into an operation, ran through Sim, save .stl, load .stl for new initial depth, and so on......

That's a helluva work around, but seems to work good enough.

Just switched from 1CNC to bobcad, not totally impressed with it, but the pros out weigh the cons so far. Just need to figure out and learn some new work arounds for it.

1CNC has better toolpaths and their machine from stock automatically took slices at each initial depth to create the boundaries.

I ended up creating new surfaces to pick as geometry to limit air cutting, one the pros, being able to work right inside of sldwrks.

I have a beer high in the air for you my friend!!

Thanx

Yeah! Sounds like no explanation is necessary, you see exactly what's going on. This is improved in V27 slightly by allowing each feature to have it's own stock. I have also noticed that some features have a "trim to stock" option which might do this a little more automagically, I haven't tried it yet. Maybe this is in V4 also, I know the two products are very similar.

Of course the method you came up with sounds pretty darn simple! I might use that myself so thanks to you also. Cheers!