surface rough toolpath question

[highrevtrev]

Hi everyone,

 

I have a problem with a surface that i am trying to machine. The part is basically a rectangle with a slight curve on the top surface. There are two 2d pockets on the left and right side of the part. I have chosen surface rough flowline to rough the surface. The operation seems to work just fine, the trouble im having is that the tool retracts over both of the 2d pockets.

 

Is there any way to get the cutter to follow the curved surface over the 2d pocket? I would greatly appreicate any help if anyone has some ideas.

 

BTW I am fairly green when it comes to machining surfaces.

 

Thanks

Trev

[Lee.]

Trev, What I would do in this instance is use Surface, Rough, Pocket first.

 

Then Surface Finish Flowline leaving some stock for finish.

 

Then use the same toolpath for finish, Zero stock to leave.

 

Make Sense?

[Chris Rizzo]

The tool is seeing those pockets as gaps in the surface, and avoiding them.You can approach the retract/jumps in a few ways.

 

Keep bumping your gap setting up until the tool no longer sees the pockets as holes in the surface. Click optimize too.

 

-or-

 

Try untrimming the surface to cover the pockets, and reselecting the full surface.

 

-or-

 

create edge curves and make a little surface to fill the pockets

 

hth

[Rick46]

choose optimize cut order option in gap settings

[Jim at Gentex]

quote:

---

create edge curves and make a little surface to fill the pockets

---

to Italian' stylin' (or the artist formerly known as cmr. )

 

I use this one alot!! Quick and simple!

[gavetta]

Here's my usual routine but it depends on the materials I'm cutting and finish requirements:

surface rough pocket (leave stock)

surface finish parallel (leave just enough stock for finish)

then witch ever surface finish toolpath best suits the geometry could be surface finish parallel, surface finish contour, surface finish project.

I don't use flowline alot because its more of a "one surface" toolpath but it does a good job on certain things. That's my .02

[highrevtrev]

Thanks for all the suggestions,

 

i'll have engouh to keep me busy with this operation for a while. I have played around with creating surfaces over the pockets but had no luck. i will try untrimming the surfaces and see if i can get some where

[Zero]

Modify>Trim>Surface>Fill Holes also works really well for covering up them pesky holes without changing the original trimmed surface...

[Dan_AKA_ROY]

All good suggestions. I like the idea of untrimming the surf. But perhaps you could go about it this way >>> Surface/Trim/Extend/Fill holes. It will create a surf over your holes and might be easier for ya rather than untrimming your surf. Lot of different ways to approach this.

 

EDIT.. zero beat me to it. Also, he worded it better. That's how I'd do it!

[highrevtrev]

Great suggestions everyone.

 

I tried to create a sweep surface over the pocket. It wouked well and blended into the curved surface. When i re-selected the newly created surface for my drive surface the flowline op created an error. Not quite sure why it did this. Anyways changing the gap settings seemed to work fine, i would rather try to create a surface over the pocket, but oh well. Thanks again guys

[MATT Q]

Create surface trim extend flat boundary manual and drag the arrow to the trim feature. maybe

[HevyMetl]

For flowline toolpaths. Make sure you selected the surfaces over the pockets and that their orientation is in the samed direction as the original surface. (the normals are pointing in the same direction) You should then beable to regenerate the surface.

[heeler]

The best luck that I have with flow line, is to unblank the untrimmed surface and retrim it to edge curves of the pockets. Then the 3 trimmed surfaces have the same parameters to cut with. Alot of times fill hole will have a different flow parameters. Personally I use flowline as more of a last resort. I have better luck and outcomes with the other surface paths as a general rule.

 

HTH

 

Glenn