Filling difficult holes in a solid

[Sigurd]

I am struggling quite a bit to remove these two holes from this part. I have tried Push-Pull to change the size, Move to move it off the part, Fill Holes, creating a power surface, Modify Feature -> Create, Modify Feature -> Remove. Nothing has worked. Would someone be willing to take a look please? Thanks.

fill holes.zip

[Colin Gilchrist]

Try merging these patch surfaces in?

fill holes_patch-surfs.x_t

[Kyle F]

3 minutes ago, Colin Gilchrist said:

Try merging these patch surfaces in?

fill holes_patch-surfs.x_t 84.41 kB · 1 download

You are a wizard,.. may I ask how you did that?

[Sigurd]

I agree. That's wild. The only problem is that I don't want to cut the OD of the hole at all. I just want to cut over it as though the hole wasn't even there.

[Colin Gilchrist]

I cheated. I did this outside of Mastercam. I fooled around in NX for a few minutes trying to use the synchronous modeling to delete the faces. Each time, to get anything that will allow me to remove the cylinder (hole), it basically defeatures the part until there is nothing to rough.

The problem "modeling wise", is the cutouts were made after the holes were already poked through the model. You have the 'runner' geometry (convex cylindrical surfaces), intersection with some "planar tilted pockets", and then there are just a bunch of radius features, thrown on to blend everything together.

I gave up trying to just modify the solid. I used 'extract geometry' in NX to create composite curves, and created surface patches.

[Sigurd]

I also gave up with the solid in Mastercam. Since we have the entire tool model in Solidworks, we got the idea to extrude a solid cylinder in the holes, and then cavity out the runner. That effectively gave me the runner geometry without the ejector pin hole, which I what I'm looking for. 

[Colin Gilchrist]

These patch surfaces I created in Mastercam.

fill holes_patch-surfs_surf-intersections.X_T

You can see where I took the "flat tilted floor surface", untrimmed the surface, and expanded it in all directions, then untrimmed the runner cylindrical geometry, and extended it until it fully intersected the flat floor face. I then created a curve at the intersection of those surfaces. (I made the curve thicker.)

[Aaron Eberhard]

Well that was difficult!  I was able to do it, but I had to undo the fillets.  

If you'd like, I can create a video showing how I did it.  There was a lot of iterations of Simplify/Optimize, modify feature/fillet, push pull, etc.

[AMCNitro]

I have to this quite often with ejector pin holes.  I usually use Net Surface.  It doesn't need to have the actual shape of the runner, you're going to drill it anyways.  You just need to plug it so MC doesn't machine down the hole.

[Leon82]

sometimes power surface can give you something good for avoiding a hole

[Sigurd]

9 hours ago, Leon82 said:

sometimes power surface can give you something good for avoiding a hole

Yep, I tried. The surface it generated had a spike sticking up really close to the wall. 

11 hours ago, AMCNitro said:

I have to this quite often with ejector pin holes.  I usually use Net Surface.  It doesn't need to have the actual shape of the runner, you're going to drill it anyways.  You just need to plug it so MC doesn't machine down the hole.

I see I'm not the only one who extrudes a "fence" on parting lines when cutting runners.

[AMCNitro]

12 hours ago, Sigurd said:

Yep, I tried. The surface it generated had a spike sticking up really close to the wall. 

I see I'm not the only one who extrudes a "fence" on parting lines when cutting runners.

Only way to do it.  If you don't it rounds off the edge, I learned that the hard way.  I also do it on the cavities.  I don't understand why scallops doesn't give you the option to make it straight.

Learn how to use Net Surface(really easy), it will save you a lot of head scratching for simple surfaces.

21 hours ago, Leon82 said:

sometimes power surface can give you something good for avoiding a hole

Power surface is hit and miss for me, sometimes it does that I need it to do, sometimes it does something unexplainable 

[Sigurd]

On 9/26/2023 at 10:17 AM, AMCNitro said:

Only way to do it.  If you don't it rounds off the edge, I learned that the hard way.  I also do it on the cavities.  I don't understand why scallops doesn't give you the option to make it straight.

Learn how to use Net Surface(really easy), it will save you a lot of head scratching for simple surfaces.

Power surface is hit and miss for me, sometimes it does that I need it to do, sometimes it does something unexplainable 

I can usually get away with roughing a runner without a fence like that. I've had luck with setting Steep/Shallow -> Minimum Depth to something below the parting line, if there's not too much finishing stock left in the runner or the cutter isn't too small. 

 

I'll look into Net Surface for next time. Always something to learn.

[Sigurd]

On 9/23/2023 at 10:51 AM, Aaron Eberhard said:

Well that was difficult!  I was able to do it, but I had to undo the fillets.  

If you'd like, I can create a video showing how I did it.  There was a lot of iterations of Simplify/Optimize, modify feature/fillet, push pull, etc.

I'd be curious to see that video if it's not too much trouble for you.

[Sigurd]

This was Power Surface.

[#Rekd™]

49 minutes ago, Sigurd said:

This was Power Surface.

I was able to get decent results with Power Surface in MC2023

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/62vkkqp7c2fe75ov4vszd/fill-holes_JF.stp?rlkey=u24v26p6ekagt7gbprg0onzgl&dl=0

 

[Colin Gilchrist]

I also got great results with Power Surface in 2023. I did have to create Surfaces from those adjacent solid faces (didn't work well when using the solid/edges), and I had to clean up the wireframe for the "boundary" around the surface edges of the hole. Once I did that, it worked pretty great.

[Aaron Eberhard]

3 hours ago, Sigurd said:

I'd be curious to see that video if it's not too much trouble for you.

I'll try to find some time today or tomorrow for ya.

[Aaron Eberhard]

Sorry about the delay, I just now got a chance to play with it.

Here's a video showing how I did it:

I feel like I should put a Like and Subscribe and a Patreon plug in there

[#Rekd™]

1 hour ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

I feel like I should put a Like and Subscribe

 Subscribed to your channel!!!! Thank you!

[Aaron Eberhard]

2 hours ago, #Rekd™ said:

 Subscribed to your channel!!!! Thank you!

Thanks!  I was joking above, but I believe you're the first subscriber   I just created this channel a week or two ago, as a friend was running into trouble figuring out an old Robodrill they bought.   I figured I'd document my adventures in mine. 

Mastercam help seemed like it fit as well.

[SuperHoneyBadger]

Count on one more sub over here, my guy.

[Sigurd]

Great, thanks! 

What would be the procedure for rebuilding those fillets?

[Aaron Eberhard]

41 minutes ago, Sigurd said:

Great, thanks! 

What would be the procedure for rebuilding those fillets?

I'd do the larger "Corner" ones first, then the lower ones.  Both might need to be Variable: