4th Axis surface

[Karl@CP PISTONS]

Hi all,

I'm just beginning to learn 4 axis stuff and

I do not know how to do what I want. Imagine 3 cables grouped into circle, now twist the far end 120 degrees. I created a spline which follows the

arc around but the surface doesn't come out right.

I put the rough draft on the ftp site in the uploads dir as imts_demo. Thanks in advance

karl

[Zero]

Hey Karl

 

I put a file in the unspecified uploads folder on the ftp next to yours.It's called cables.mc8.Is this what you were looking for?

[Karl@CP PISTONS]

Hi Zero,

That is exactly what I was looking for. Would you

be so kind as to explain how you made it work?

My surface never came out correct. Top view looked good, but side view was curved. Hard to put a picture of what was happening into words.

anyway thank you for the corrected drawing.

Karl

[Zero]

I know exactly what your saying.I created it in Rhino and converted it to mc8.I've found that mastercam doesn't handle sweeping some kinds of arcs very well.Even though it seems pretty simple and the geometry you had should really be all you need to create the surface, mastercam just doesn't seem to see what your trying to do.I did it in rhino first because I knew it would do it,then tried in mastercam and got basicaly what I think you were getting.If you make surfaces alot, you might consider purchasing rhino because it's pretty cheap.I like to use a combination of the to programs when modeling but do most of my surface work in mastercam except when it comes to sweeping those darn arcs.

[Karl@CP PISTONS]

Zero,

Thanks for the info. Does rhino have a demo version, if so where...rhino.com???? and what do you export it to (iges,dxf....ect.) to get it into MC.

Karl

[mikee]

Rhino3d.com

Its a 20 meg download for evaluation

It gives you about 20 saves

 

 

mikee

[Zero]

That's another great thing about Rhino. It' got a plethera of file converting options. To get a file into mastercam I wite an iges (which by the way you can 'save as' a number of different kinds of iges including mastercam).I've also had files that wouldn't convert good into mastercam but would convert great into and then out of Rhino.

 

If I could only merge the 2 into 1 program...............

[bryan.davis]

Alternatively theres Cadkey, very good range of constuction tools inluding swept contours and lofted solids, and also very good range of translators

[Karl@CP PISTONS]

Bryan,

I bought cadkey way back in the DOS days paid about 400 dollars. After my wife and kid came along never upgraded. I still have my 5 1/4 disks but no computer to read them (only 3 1/2 ). Our engineering dept. uses it. I'll ask for a demo on monday.

Have a good weekend all.

Karl