lathe toolpath question

[cherokeechief79]

we have 16000 30 deg points to put on 1 inch rebar cut to 3 ft long to make stakes to be pounded into the ground.we are doing this on 2 haas toolroom lathes.canned cycle is efficient but takes a little too long.i programmed it in mc 9 with a 55 deg tool for the other machine.this toolpath cuts along the taper(30deg)with each cut and the finish cut cuts backwards towards the point center.i think ill get better tool life out of this because im using a 433 big nose rad insert and the finish cut is always cutting on the non roughing side of the radius.this worked well(1st day)but i need to speed it up.i want to rough at the 30 deg angle but i want to use a zigzag toolpath that cuts in both directions.right now it rapids back to the front for another cut.

will mc9 do this?

when i use rgh then try zigzag it wont work properly.it looks like this is for grooving.

i have to save the toolpath as geometry and then connect it myself.

any ideas?

[Hardmill]

quote:

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i have to save the toolpath as geometry and then connect it myself.

any ideas?

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Thats prolly what id do just to get it going.

Interesting, ive done this (simuliar) in the past

and just let it rough and finish, not zig-zaggin.

 

Ill have to check that out.

 

 

PEACE

[Odell]

Not that this will help but we have machine here dedicated to do only that. We call them pointers. We can load a hopper up and point bar stock like that at the rate of about 1200 to 1400 an hour. Sometimes it's cheaper to have the simple stuff done elsewhere.

[Bob Hedrick]

I put a file called point.zip in the Lathe folder on CADCAM's FTP site. I created a rough pass using zigzag rough and put a finish pass on the part. The file was created in X4, but I didn't use anything not available in V9. I don't have V9 loaded on any of my systems currently.

I used tangent lead in/out and set the tool clearance angles to 0 to get it to cut correctly. The toolpath is designed to work with groove geometry.