[1hander]

o think i have the roughing figured out with a 3d pocket ... which leaves a jagged bottom on the curve... im trying to figure out how to finish machine just that curve at the bottom, ive tried deriving lots of ops and other ops... but im obviously missing the mark by two days ... can someone help me on this...

i tried deriving a 3d pocket op then using rest machining.. from previous ops but it kept giving me empty toolpath

[cygnus x-1]

For finishing just the bottom curve I would use a parallel operation. Turn on touch surfaces and select just the face to be machined. The step over should be very small, like 0.005" or so. You'll have to play with the angle to get the tool paths going the right direction. You want to tool paths to run perpendicular to the axis of the cylindrical face.

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[1hander]

i completely got lot again..

but i did a 3d pocket and set the ramping to smooth profile... and left behind .004in for finishing ... it looks ok so far


then i tried a parralel and set the angle to 90 and touch surface.. but its trying to machine a side area instead of just the surface i selected..


i know i can just refixture this part standing up and do a 2d pocket with finishing and be done with it...but i really want to learn more..my fourth axis is coming and ineed to learn new stuff

[1hander]

how would you do this pocket...

[cygnus x-1]

For roughing I would probably use 3D Adaptive to rough the entire part at one time. But for just that cutout your pocket op looks reasonable.

For finishing I would do something like in the attached file.


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[1hander]

i did a 3d parallel and adjusted the angle to 90deg ... stepover .004in .. this looks good except for the fact that at the very bottom it plunges pretty deep all at nce into the rest material..and there is no step down adjustment that i can see...and to the left where the cutting path exits, it leaves a small bevel where the edge of the cutout is...but on the entry it leaves a 90deg like it should

i could not read the f3d file

[cygnus x-1]

i did a 3d parallel and adjusted the angle to 90deg ... stepover .004in .. this looks good except for the fact that at the very bottom it plunges pretty deep all at nce into the rest material..and there is no step down adjustment that i can see

If there is still too much rest material you may need another roughing step before finishing.

...and to the left where the cutting path exits, it leaves a small bevel where the edge of the cutout is...but on the entry it leaves a 90deg like it should

You're seeing an extra bevel in the simulation? Looking at that last picture the tool path looks ok. Although for curved surfaces like this I usually run the tool paths 90 degrees from the way you are doing.

i could not read the f3d file

You'll have to upload it first, or to open it from your local drive you have to do "new design from file".



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[1hander]

now i understand... i need to use a smaller tool for a second roughing pass to leave less rest material for the finishing pass.... now it makes sense..

if i change the angle back to 0 the small bevel it makes goes away so that makes sense as well...
thanks for the tolerance . i really do appreciate...cuz i learned something new...up until now i have only been using 2d strategies...the 3d stuff is definately a different animal ...and has quite a few settings that if not set properly will make the cutting strategy fail..more to learn..

thanks
rick

[cygnus x-1]

now i understand... i need to use a smaller tool for a second roughing pass to leave less rest material for the finishing pass.... now it makes sense..

if i change the angle back to 0 the small bevel it makes goes away so that makes sense as well...
thanks for the tolerance . i really do appreciate...cuz i learned something new...up until now i have only been using 2d strategies...the 3d stuff is definately a different animal ...and has quite a few settings that if not set properly will make the cutting strategy fail..more to learn..

thanks
rick

Yeah, the 2 axis paths are very different from the 3 axis paths. The 2 axis paths are easier to control but they're also *stupid* in that they have no knowledge of the solid model, so they basically just do exactly what you tell them. The 3 axis paths have much more intelligence built in, so they can save you a lot of programming work (3D adaptive for example). But then they also may not do what you would expect if the settings are not exactly correct.

Anyway, glad you got it figured out.


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