What toolpath would I use?

[Jon @ NOWHERE]

Ok you guys have helped me out alot before in the past so here I am to pick your brains once more. Here is the situation I want to cut this thin wall on both the outside and inside including the radius at the bottom of the inside. I would like to do it all in one operation on each wall. Then I will go in there and pick up where the last tool left off and finish the rest of the outer wall down to the end of it. We are using a .750x.260 full radius wheel cutter to do so. How would I go about doing this? The thin wall is .060" thick and I've left about .04" material on both sides of the wall. The picture below shows the walls that I am talking about as well as how the part is sitting on the tombstone. I've been racking my brain on this one and really wish I knew how to use mastercam to its fullest, but one day I will get there hopefully. I want to achieve the best finish I can in the shortest amount of time, trying to cut down a 3hr cycle time as much as possible.

 

edit: Using X2 MR2 SP1

 

Thanks in advance

Jon

 

[Colin Gilchrist]

So you want to finish outside and inside of the walls until you get to the floor depth, then come back and clean up the outside?

 

I would use Surface Finish Contour with a containment boundary. This will give you a toolpath that wraps around the wall. I'm guessing you are using the wheel cutter because the walls are undercut and you can't use a regular endmill.

 

Surface Finish Contour and Surface finish Flowline are both capable of undercutting a part like this. Flowline will be more limited though, as it is better suited to single surface machining.

 

Can you put a file on the FTP site?

[Jon @ NOWHERE]

Yes I will put the file on the ftp site when I get home, I'm leaving work right now.

 

Jon

[Jon @ NOWHERE]

Well I dont guess that I can upload my file. The ftp site is not working for me, its not comming up at all. By looking at the picture what do you sugges that I use as a containment boundary? And yes I cant use a regular endmill cause the walls contour curves in both the vertical and horizontal direction.

 

Jon

[Jon @ NOWHERE]

I tried to upload the file when I got to work this morning and I cant access the ftp site here at work either. But thanks for your help, I will try to create the toolpath that you suggested. Anyone else got any suggestions?

 

Jon

[Jon @ NOWHERE]

Ok I got the toolpath to work by drawing a box around the wall and using it as the containment boundary. The toolpath appears to do what I need it to except that it is cutting at the ends of the walls as well I want it to go past the ends of the walls without touching them. How do I go about doing so?

 

 

Jon

[crazy^millman]

Make dummy surfaces for the part and extend them to the places you do not want to cut. The toolpath will then drive off of them and run out like what you are looking for.

 

HTH

[HEAVY METAL]

you might try to extend the surfaces on the ends the toolpath will still wrap around but it will not touch the actual part

[Jon @ NOWHERE]

Ok that worked well thank you

[Jon @ NOWHERE]

Ok now this is about to aggrevate me, when I try to create a surface finish flowline tool path and use the surfaces that I created it doesnt create the toolpath that I need. Its the last toolpath in the file that I am uploading here.

[MaKiNoMaN78]

Using the surface finish contour, I noticed that the walls were thicker closer towards the bottom of the walls. Im not sure why this happened any suggestions as to what to do to fix it?