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Lathe Groove (Chain) Smooth vs. Steps glitch


StevenL
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I have MasterCAM for SolidWorks (essentially MasterCAM 2021).  I'm new to this in the past few months.  Straight out of school to the industry.  

Lots of success getting cosmetically clean parts off our CNC Lathe, quickly, but I like to use  lathe groove tool to make deep curved and convoluted shapes in the hardware parts.  It works well but I noticed when I use the "Groove walls" option Smooth I sometimes get a collision with stock even though I know this isn't case.  If I go back to "Steps" it's OK.

I realize there are Entry settings with Degrees (Sweep) and (Radius) but I change these and they don't really make a difference.

Has anyone else seen this issue.  I like the clean form I get prior to finish because final finish is very important.  Knocking off the steps on the finish cut can give a slightly rougher finish.

I think I'm going to ignore this because I do a pre-rough pass using constructions profiles to "hog" out a basic stock shape to speed things up without compromising the underlying material that has to be stress free for plating and coatings.  Any stress areas can show up later after polishing and finishing.

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Thanks, I put a huge number in for lead in length (5") and it cleared up my problem.  I kept scaling it up in small increments thinking I wasn't way out but in the end it was somewhere between .350 and .400" needed to clear previous cuts.  Sometimes the error is obvious when you simulate and you find a cone shaped part, here it just didn't show up.

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36 minutes ago, StevenL said:

Thanks, I put a huge number in for lead in length (5") and it cleared up my problem.  I kept scaling it up in small increments thinking I wasn't way out but in the end it was somewhere between .350 and .400" needed to clear previous cuts.  Sometimes the error is obvious when you simulate and you find a cone shaped part, here it just didn't show up.

Seems  excessive for a lead in.

Another  setting worth looking at is 'use stock for outer boundary' which looks at stock remaining from previous ops and minimizes air cuts.

 

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