Finish Flowline -

[EazyE]

I am using a finish flowline to cut some circles 1.0 dp with angled walls - everything works fine but there are 12 walls that i select as drive surfaces - the problem is that some of the walls are cutting top to bottom and others are cutting in a circle motion - Can anyone tell me why this is happening.

[crazy^millman]

Take the time to make sure the surface are only as one surface at each hole even if you need to make new revolved surfaces. Also you may need to break each up at an operation to get direction correct. May also want to check normals though I think you are good since they are all cutting on the inside and not the outside of the holes.

 

HTH

[Mark V.]

Flowline doesnt like multiple surfaces very well.Try one at a time or a different toolpath

[Slydman]

I usually not use flowline toolpath. I use surface finish project from an NCI path, like that i could control more accurately the movement

[Justin Beebe at Folsom Tool]

EazyE,

 

I have been using a lot of flowline toolpaths lately. If all the surfaces you are cutting are the same just in different locations what I recomend is getting the first one to work the way you want then doing a transform by coordinate toolpath to finish the rest. This way if your first toolpath starts from the top all of the transform operations will start from the top as well.

[edmBosto]

quote:

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the problem is that some of the walls are cutting top to bottom and others are cutting in a circle motion

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The reason for this is the way the surfaces were constructed. If all the surfaces were made exactly the same way you would see the paths consistant at ea. hole. When constructing the surfaces start your chains at the same place on ea. hole.

I use flowline most of the time for drafting my surfaces and I try to make the chaining of the surfaces consistant. There has been talk of this before on the forum and that's how I learned of it.

[EazyE]

To me there should be a way to tell it to do the cuts the same way. Vertical or Horizontal. Oh well. Thanks guys at least i can move on -

[Rick Henrickson 65]

surface finish contour will probably be what you are looking for

[Bjorn Petersson AME AB]

I often use the suface finish blend operation for multisurface operations where flowline would be my first selection.(But couldn't solve it)

If the surfaces are simple enough to recreate as a single surface you could get better flowline op's.

[P_Scott]

EazyE,

 

I agree with Bjorn on this issue. Rick's suggestion of using Contour might help as well but I find the Contour toolpath to produce too many plunge and retract moves. Read up on the Finish Blend toolpath. Finding or making proper boundaries is all you really need for the Blend to work. It usually makes one plunge and retract point. This keeps the tool on the surfaces you want to machine no matter what direction they take. HTH

 

BTW, where in Mass. are you? Our reseller is an excellent source for Mcam support and learning. Their name is Services Four Automation and they're located near Leominster.

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

aNALIZE-TEST/CHECK SURFACES ->SELECT NORMALS

tHIS WILL CHANGE ALL SURFACES TO HAVE TOP IN ONE DIRECTION

hth

[edmBosto]

Winnie,

Your stating even if the normals are facing the right way the start top will be the same after your suggestion?

Never tried that