Engraving Student art work in MILL

[A Beneteau]

Hello all,

 

My name is Andre Im a teacher in London Ontario using MC9. I have been trying to get student art work into the engraving mode to cut out there art into plastic. Im fine upto where the chaining is done. It seems to chain all of the arcs but it tells me it isn't closed and only machines a small portion of the work. Does anyone have any ideas or workarounds. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

Andre

[cadcam]

can you share the file with us to view over?

 

Are you trying to cut this as a pocket ofr as a contour?

 

One more question are you using the engraving package to do this?

[MACHINEMASTERG]

when ever i do engraving i use contour,window then window around geo to engrave then pick at one end for the search point then it does it wala try that o yea cutter on the center line

[Mark H]

Make sure all the adjoining arcs, lines andor splines are trimmed to one another. For a 2D part make sure the all the geometry is on the same Z plane.

[BK]

I like to use the "Squash" function when you have toolpath chaining problems. If all the geo is at the same Z level, give it a try.

Good Luck,

Bob

[A Beneteau]

Thanks gentleman,

 

I will try all of these suggestions. Yes I am trying to use the engraving option in MC V9 also using the rast2vect option.

 

Thanks

[rchoward]

here is the engraving skinny

 

bring in the artwork/logo/sign what have u

 

delete duplicate entites

 

if it look choppy covert to arcs can help

 

contour window

 

select a search point (end of an entity in a top corner is good)

 

cutter comp off is good (center line programming)

 

as fast as the spindle will turn a 1/16 ball nose cut approx .005 deep at .002thou/tooth xy half that on z low clearance is a must because u will go in and out of the cut lots and a good coolant flood to wash away chips

 

check the verify and adj depth and cutter size until desired affect is obtained

[Mike Annetts]

Hello

With the engraving toolpaths all contours have to be closed I believe. i think that you want to contour instead. select with a window, enter the search point and have compensation off or centerline.

[cadcam]

To use the ingraving from the add-on it want to see the Geo as a pocket thought so it can do the 3d contour moves up in the sharp corners.

 

Some of the other options that the others guys are talkinf about are the standerd flat contour use a window and cut down the center of the geo this is diffrent.

 

This why I asked if you could share the file.

[Mike Annetts]

Hello

 

We do the engraving all the time and if it is not a closed chain it will give you an error saying"chain not closed skipping". Mastercam also doesn't like if any enities are crosses or not trimmed together. It will give you an error. we either do a lot of trimming up and searching for the problem chain or use the contour function as Jay said. The engraving and the convertor are nice although we haven't gotten the best results with the convertor. Usualy quite a bit of redrawing. Just my 2 cents worth.

 

Mike

[Will Slota]

One thing that might help is to 'Analyze chain' then you can find where the break in the pocket chain is.

 

[ 03-24-2003, 09:12 PM: Message edited by: Will Slota, CNC Sortware, Education ]

[cadcam]

When doing doing the multy poscket thought mastercam will tell you open pockets not supported then when you say ok it will highlite the Geo that would not close.

 

Now you can chain that pocket and see if it comes around to were you picked look were it stoped compared to were you started this is were the trouble is.

 

if you have few overlap segments in the geo you can use the C-hook FINDOVLP.dll to find overlaping segments.