Help on Trimmed toolpath.

[bestguest]

Anyone want to take a stab at a part I am working with?What I want it to do is cut only on the vertical faces in the die opening.I have tried using the trim toolpath function but no luck as of yet.The file is a z2go and is called trimmed.z2g in the X folder on the ftp site.Been working on this for a few hours now and am stuck.

Thanks

 

Matt

[Tim Simmermon]

Without looking at your file, try changing planes and then trim the toolpath. If you are machining in the top plane, you might try trimming while in the front or right side plane. This goofed me up the first time I tried trimming a path.

[Thad]

Matt,

 

I looked at your file and I'm unclear of what you want to do. Based on your 2 trimming boundaries, I think you've "contained" the area that you want to cut. Does that sound right? If so, that's not quite how the trim toolpath feature works. Your boundary should contain the area that you *don't* want to cut. As Tim said, you can trim from planes other than top...for castings and such.

 

There should be some sample files in your MC install directory to see how the trimmed toolpaths work.

 

Thad

[Thad]

quote:

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Your boundary should contain the area that you *don't* want to cut.

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Sorry, this is incorrect information. I was just playing with it and it promts for side to keep. Therefore, you don't have to contain what you don't want.

 

Thad

[Steve Arteman]

BestG,

I was able to get this to work from what you discribed using surface contour finish, top chain as containment, Pick all color 110 as the drive and all color 194 as check.

Steve

[bestguest]

Thanks to everyone that took time out of their day to take a look at this. I originally posted this message as I was running out the door yesterday and did a bad job of explaining myself. On level 250 there is a model with a vertical cutout through the center. This is the area that I want to trim. I could just contour mill the profile through the block but I would like to eliminate hours of air cutting. I can get the tool to cut along the 3d curve I created however because it needs to be a ball tool I can not get the tool to stay "normal" to the curve. On the near vertical walls the first pass gouges bad. The people I work for do not want to WEDM the shape due to the size and cost.

[El Scotthead]

I put a zip file in the mcx folder. See if that will work for you. It's just a quickie, so make sure to tweak/check it before you use it.

 

 

scott

[bestguest]

Thanks for the help on this one.I took Scott's toolpath example and was able to get what i needed.Once again this is the best resource on the net for Cad/Cam hands down.

[El Scotthead]

Glad we could help

 

Actually, I hafta confess....I played with it to figure out the trim toolpath as much as helping BestG out. Everybody gained something