Placing vector line through angled holes

[Travis2282]

I am just starting to do some fourth axis work and I was wondering if there were diff. ways to place a line in the center of arcs, when the arcs are at diff angles. I have been using fbm drill and letting it place a vector line in the arcs, and then going into planes and choosing the line as my planes by normal. Thanks

[Colin Gilchrist]

Well do you actually want the line? You could just do 'Planes by Entity' and click on the arc. Just be sure it is an arc and not a spline.

[ajmer]

verisurf hole axis will do this quite well

[gcode]

a workaround..

create surface from solid

pick the inside hole surface

untrim the resulting surface

now you have a cylinder

create curve single

select the top and bottom of the cylinder

now you have 2 circles

switch to 3D mode

draw a line between the 2 arc centers

that line is the hole axis

[kunfuzed]

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That's slick!

[Dan@home]

Or, Unshade solid or surfaces and Create/Curve/Constant Parametric Curve, select inside hole and move arrow to locatation you want. You may or will have to select direction arrow in the option bar for a circle. Make two of these, then create line at center points for hole axis.

[Superman]

Or another version of Gcode's method

 

Cap the end of the cylinder with a surface and place a line ( at a fixed length, say 0.100" ) in the arc centre, normal to that cap surface for your 5-ax hole vector, you have got your retract point, vectors and your Z+ direction for the 5-ax drill cycles

[nhraguy]

I agree with ajmer. I used to do it the "gcode" way but then I found out about the free add on from verisurf (hole axis)now I can do this with just one click of the mouse. I drill 5 axis holes all day long and this free add on saves me countless hours of work.

[Travis2282]

Thanks, I will give these a try, how do i go about getting the add on from verisurf?

[Travis2282]

Gcode, that worked great. that was a pretty cool way of doing it.

[nhraguy]

You know what, I just checked their web site and I guess that they don't offer that anymore. Bummer!

[Travis2282]

O well, Thanks for checkin.

[Ron Branch @ 5th Axis]

Yes we do offer it and here is the link:

 

Verisurf's Free Hole Axis wtih Bounding Box.

 

HTH

[Travis2282]

OK, I got it thanks Ron!

[nhraguy]

Ya thanks Ron, I was pretty sure that you guys did but for some reason I couldn't find it. I really love this add on.