Waterline makes too many retracts

[BliggeFar]

Hey there,

I'm working on these radius with the waterline feature. But i consistently run into a problem with mastercam wanting to do retracts on the first engagement. 

I have been trying to figure out what might be causing this, but have not yet found a solution to the problem. i have been playing with different settings, but without much luck.

Maybe one of you guys have a suggestion to solve my issue

[sharles]

 

have you messed with these settings?

[Leon82]

on top of those i have found a tighter tolerance will remove those sometimes

[gcode]

Try playing with these settings

Projected boundary smoothing can frequently fix retracts at the boundary of the toolpath

Another trick is to use the comp settings to make the tool run a couple of thou" inside your boundary.

You'll never notice it on the part, but it will often force the tool to stay down.

 

 

[crazy^millman]

Another trick with waterline when doing vertical walls is to create a dummy surface at the top of a wall you don't want waterline to try to cut through. Trim the edge or edges of the surface bu .002" smaller next to the vertical walls you want to cut. The pick that surface for avoidance and done.

[amw]

Most of the retracts are right at the top. Usually you can fix this by apply depth limits. Just set the minimum depth to be a thou or 2 deep, then all the mess at the top is gone. 

[Mcfish]

1 hour ago, amw said:

Most of the retracts are right at the top. Usually you can fix this by apply depth limits. Just set the minimum depth to be a thou or 2 deep, then all the mess at the top is gone. 

This is a great trick in Opti rough too.   Many times we use Opti on a second op/flip of the part to take off the rest of the material.   By doing this you eliminate the need of babysitting the slug.   The tool will finish on a surface instead of having it out in space making a slug problem.  

[Simon Kausch]

On 8/31/2023 at 4:46 PM, amw said:

Most of the retracts are right at the top. Usually you can fix this by apply depth limits. Just set the minimum depth to be a thou or 2 deep, then all the mess at the top is gone. 

That's usually the fastest way for me to clean up the toolpath!