What path to use

[Thoob]

Hi. I have a part I need to surface but I am having trouble figuring out what path to use. Note it has to be a fairly decent finish. I am going to attach a picture. The highlighted part is the surface that needs to be cut.

The part is currently not cut at all. Its a square block. needs to look like the picture.

 

[crazy^millman]

Parallel , flowline, surface finish contour, HST core Rough with HST waterline, Blend and sure I can come up with a couple others.

 

HTH

[Guest]

Surface Finish Blend or Surface Finish Flowline would be my choices but Ron is right you could get many paths to cut that geometry.

[Thoob]

lol, I couldn't get parallel or contour to work right. I'm sure its just me missing parameters but I got it working with flowline. Thanks. lol sorry for the noob question.

[Thoob]

I find the only problem with the finish flowline is I can't control the depth of cut and it wants to take too much at a time as it thinks there is no material there. If I use rough, it takes too many radial cuts when I have a tool that would take the whole width. So basically I have a finish path created no problem, what is best to rough it with. The rad is 3.125 and I am using a 6" button cutter with .75D inserts.

[MotorCityMinion]

I'd probably try surf rgh parallel to clear it out with a cutter that size. Surf rgh pocket with a smaller cutter would work also.

[Thoob]

Thanks guys. I got it.

[cadcam]

have you tried a band saw for rough then a path for finish?

[Thoob]

No. I ended up using a rough contour. Then finish flowline.

[Steve Z]

have you ever tried the surface high speed toolpaths? I have been using them quite a bit. You get a lot of control, DOC that you are looking for. I use it to rough and finish, many different cycles to try....HTH