Is there a way to 'sketch a toolpath'?

[MetalFlake]

I'd like to do something like: Toolpath-Contour-Sketch. Then pick some points and have that be where the tool goes. Is there a c-hook that does this?

 

Many thanks!!

 

MF

[Midwest]

Aura cad cam had a feature like that, I liked using it to face off, or clean out an area quickly. Don't use Aura Cad Cam anymore.

[mayday]

someones got a mouse toolpath, camiax maybe

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Yeah, CAMAIX or 4D Engineering has "Mouse Toolpath".

[bryan314]

intersting idea.

 

You could probably do something similiar with create-line-multi and a normal contour operations.

 

Bryan

[MetalFlake]

Ok, so does Gibbs. I thought this was a MasterCAM forum /sarcasm on.

[mayday]

hey Brian, whip sompin up for us

[robk]

Hey Bryan, how about your CRLENGTH.DLL c-hook?

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey Bryan, how about your CRLENGTH.DLL c-hook?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That`s what I use for free mouse machining ,LOL !

Remember ,Bryan , I asked for multyline mode ?

 

And I used Aura and loved it`s free hand milling .

NCTool(obsolete ) and Solidcam(modern) also have this feature

[Midwest]

A quick work-around I use is create, arc, pt dia, sketch and draw a few circles the size of your cutter, then connect CL points and use a contour tool path.

 

HTH

[Eric S.]

You could create a spline and use it for your toolpath?

[Glenn Bouman]

It is already in Mastercam.

 

Toolpath, next menu, point

[Eric S.]

You could also use toolpath editor to move the tool where you like.

[Philcott]

Glenn comes through.

 

You go Glenn.

 

Phil

[CAM-mando]

quote:

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It is already in Mastercam.

 

Toolpath, next menu, point

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Yes and if you sketch it in close you can edit the locations from the ops manager.

[MetalFlake]

Well, thats not as pretty as I was hoping. I'd like to see the dia of my cutter as I drag it around. Guess it'll do.

 

MF

[bryan314]

quote:

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Remember ,Bryan , I asked for multyline mode ?

---

Yes, I do actually. And it's on my to do list. The short one. A small sticky note with about 10 items. (create-at-lengtht-w/multiline is about half way down). The problem being the todo list is 3rd in my priorites:

1) My main job as toolpather.

2) Whatever project my boses (4 or 5 bosses at last count) think is more important.

3) Chook Short list.

 

The good, #1 has been slow enough that I switched over and cleaned a few items off #3. I have a new chook I'll probably put up tomorrow. The bad, the bosses realized #1 was slow and put me on a project

 

quote:

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hey Brian, whip sompin up for us

---

Not on your life! I refuse to do toolpath, nci, bnci chooks. I've done some stuff with multiposting and reading operation information but have steared away from toolpath generation. I played around with some bnci stuff the other day and it was the biggest headache ever.

 

 

In all serious this is why we pay Cnc Software a lot of money.

 

Bryan

[Midwest]

quote:

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Well, thats not as pretty as I was hoping. I'd like to see the dia of my cutter as I drag it around. Guess it'll do.

---

You would have liked the Aura Cad feature. You could see the endmill dia. all you had to do was click the mouse and you get a series of overlapping circles following you mouse. Really fast and easy to use, kind of like a slinky affect.

 

[Thad]

That was a nice feature in Gibbs, wasn't it? Not only would you see your cutter diameter, but you'd see a grey streak of your cutter diameter as you clicked. Kind of like verify in the backplot mode, but not as dark. It let you know if you missed a spot. VERY nice feature for some down and dirty roughing.

 

Thad teh not ALL of Gibbs sucked

[cadcam]

Metalflake the mouse machine does it the way you want. you difine the size of your tool then drage that around clicking.

[jkilby]

Metalflake you can go to operations, Backplot, Display under the genral tab look at the bottom and check Save as Geometry. Make sure and uncheck when done.

[Roger Peterson]

The only problem with typical "mouse machining" is that it is not tied to any type of geometry, or the part being machined. Any changes that are made to the model, or fixturing do not apply to the "mouse machined" toolpath. Many a part has been scrapped to save a few minutes of programming. Now if you are the only one editing your files, probably not an issue.

 

 

JM2C

[Mike Whitten CAD/CAM Contractors]

Good call Rog! I must agree with you for a lot of situations although I still like mouse machining because of the programming speed. Maybe because I used Geopath for so many years. It has great mouse machining.

 

The method I use most often to get around this issue is to just do a Pocket (usually back and forth) with "finish" turned off. I then just add CRC with the toolpath editor. I always have parts with steps on finger type sections. I hate to draw extra geometry.

 

Another thing that I wish for is an option to have the tool do a proper "Back and Forth" cut when you say "keep tool down" on a multipass contour cut. The way it is now is that it just drags the tool at an angular motion to the start of the next pass.

 

I have put requests in on both of these issues.

 

Thanks all,

 

Mike