Electrode surface finish question

[Trapper Paul]

Greetings forum

I'll try not to yell, as a post question or get in trouble. Believe me all forums have troubles.

 

Anyways,

 

What is everyones opinion about surface finish on an electode made with mastercam in a cnc mill?

 

What produces a better trode finish? Having the (tool) "total Tolerance" turned on or turned off? The size of the program doesn't matter in this application. Thanks in advance.

 

Paul

[Fig sign]

Most common good strategies for finish :

Surface ->contour + surface->shallow

Surface->scallop

Surface->project->blend

Surface->flowline

I prefer the first

 

You can not turn off total tolerance ,you can turn off filtering

I use filtering on every toolpath 2:1 ith total tolerance 0.005 mm

 

HTH

[Lumpnut]

oopps, bad picture. sorry

 

 

[ 01-06-2005, 02:47 PM: Message edited by: NuNu ]

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NuNU,looking on your pic:

better to use proportion 2:1

and use one way filtering

[Trapper Paul]

Let me clarify that question.

In the "total tolerance" area.

Having the filter ratio turned on or off produces the better electrode finish?

[Fig sign]

Depends on the machine .

Filter turns your little line segments to arcs and lines of bigger size .

You pay with accuracy of the toolpath according to tolerance

So ,if your machine has little memory buffer ,DNC feedback ,bad table backlash and so on filtering helps ,if the nmachine is new wth dataserver and all the gadgets you can turn it off

[Trapper Paul]

Whow Pooh bear!

 

wow, thanks, so if I understand correctly. Having filter ratio on (I usually use 2:1) will usually give me better finishes.

I have a 1998 tree CNC mill (VMC 500)

 

Am I on the right track?

[Fig sign]

Yes !

 

As I saw in olD OKUMA ONCE WITH CIMATRON NON-FILTERED PAth (THey simply don`t have this feature ) the feed can suddenly drop down 10-20 and more times .

On machines with backlash you can expect shudder from acceleration-deceleration .

DNC drip feeding a lot of little blocks also can be aa problem ,the controller will stand waiting for a new bunch and tool milling stand still.

And a problem of machines with small bubble memory ,like an old relict I run now from time to time with 40Kb of it .

What is 40kb of surface-contour of a modest accuracy and common complexity for unfiltered toolpath

Filtering shortens my programs 5-10 times !

Filtering is a good tool ,but first of all to get good electrode finish you must use good cutting strategy .

[Trapper Paul]

Thanks Owe let!

 

My machine has plenty of memory. I havn't had to drip anything in years. I was just looking for other input.

 

Thanks again. Paul