5 axis surfacing with undercut tools

[5AXIS505]

Hi everyone

I was curious what toolpaths other guys out there are using to surface undercut features on their 5 axis mill. I am trying machine some radius on the bottom of a hole and am having a heck of a time figuring out a good way to do this. I am currently trying to get port 5 axis to work and am having quite a few issues.  Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

[Leon82]

I usually use flowline or parallel with from point as the strategy. 

For complicated stuff I use mostly profanity and those same two things 

[AHarrison1]

12 hours ago, Leon82 said:

For complicated stuff I use mostly profanity

Too true. I swear there are times I feel that apart from being a CAM software it is also a tool to make sure that you definitely are

filling your daily quota of swearwords.

[JoshC]

flowline works with undercuts

surface finish contour works with undercuts

about every mult-axis path works with undercuts (in my opinion offering the most power, control, and most supporting 3 axis, 4 axis or 5 axis tool axis control modes).

Edit: i just noticed you specifically are looking for 5axis motion and not 3 axis so maybe these examples dont apply to this question, so i suggest Unified, if you set unified to a Plane and set it to "construction Plane Z" on the cut pattern page i think that would work well, since setting unified to a construction plane Z means the toolpath will cut Top to bottom which i assume is how we would want to cut a feature like that

CONTOUR-FINISH-UNDERCUT.mcam

[JoshC]

here is a 5axis example of the type of path i would likely choose5axis undercut example.mcam

[Jobnt]

On 7/13/2023 at 3:37 AM, AHarrison1 said:

Too true. I swear there are times I feel that apart from being a CAM software it is also a tool to make sure that you definitely are

filling your daily quota of swearwords.

At my last Gibbs job I shared an office with the CEO. He eventually moved out because I kept talking swearing out loud about all the bugs in the software.

[5AXIS505]

23 hours ago, JoshC said:

flowline works with undercuts

surface finish contour works with undercuts

about every mult-axis path works with undercuts (in my opinion offering the most power, control, and most supporting 3 axis, 4 axis or 5 axis tool axis control modes).

Edit: i just noticed you specifically are looking for 5axis motion and not 3 axis so maybe these examples dont apply to this question, so i suggest Unified, if you set unified to a Plane and set it to "construction Plane Z" on the cut pattern page i think that would work well, since setting unified to a construction plane Z means the toolpath will cut Top to bottom which i assume is how we would want to cut a feature like that

CONTOUR-FINISH-UNDERCUT.mcam 2.67 MB · 2 downloads

I really appreciate the input.  I was attempting to use unified before but I kept getting unsupported tool  errors, after selecting the z construction plane those errors went away. I am now making good progress on this part. Thanks again! 

[Aaron Eberhard]

If you can post a file with a sample of the area you're trying to reach, we can be more specific about how to configure Unified to do what you're doing.  I would not recommend using Port 5x, it's a very old toolpath for a specific purpose.  It has been obsolete since ~2007.