Plunge Roughing

[PE @ IHS]

Hello folks

 

A customer asked me recently about how effective the plunge roughing toolpath is within MC. I replied that I have never tried it and have not seen it done.

 

Has anyone on the forum used this toolpath to rough out deep cavities? Did you use a flat drill or a milling tool?

 

thanks for any help

 

Peter Eigler

[NYMike]

Hi Peter E ,

I use plunge roughing often to remove bulks of material quickly. I use a 3 or 4 flute centercut end mill. Your tool is much stronger when you cut in the axial direction and you can take a large chip load per tooth when you plunge. Of course the material you are cutting is the determining factor on how you are going to remove material, I use plunge roughing on Aluminum, steel, and plastics. Hope this helps.

Mike

[McRae]

Peter,

 

I suggest the use of an Iscar or Kennametal Plunger for this tool path. You used the right application - Cavity. An inserted drill is only a single flute effective tool so avoid these.

 

Regards,

[Kevin Goddard]

I am very interested in learning how to plunge rough in MC myself. We plunge rough frequently, but I have not found a graceful way to do it in Mastercam. What am I missing? Thanks.

[PE @ IHS]

Thanks for all the help, guys.

 

I will try this toolpath the first chance I get. I was thinking of using a U-drill from a lathe, but perhaps there are better tools for such interrupted cuts.

 

thanks again

 

Peter Eigler

[john]

I try this "surface" "rough" "plunge" function but some how i can not control step over direction ( only at 0 or 180 degree). I like to step over at 90 deg direction.

Thanks for helps.

[mayday]

We use 2" iscar center cutting plunge ruffer. new style. you have to play with your boundrys to get just what you want. but it works quite well.

[McRae]

Peter,

 

Did your customer ever use this??

[Jeremiah]

I finally found a fairly easy way to control the plunge rough toolpath just yesterday.

 

I uploaded a sample file of the toolpath to the MC9files, directory on Cadcams site.

 

plunge_from_nci.mc9

 

I used the method "from nci" , wich was a multi-pass contour at the final depth of the plunge. You can control the axial stepover in the parameters and with the offset of your multi-passes.

 

Good luck and have a great day.

Jeremiah

 

[ 09-11-2003, 09:18 AM: Message edited by: Jeremiah ]

[Hardmill]

I have used this path w/ 2.0 & 3.0 dia

Sandvik (390) cutters. But like everything else

each job is usually an individual and needs

to be tweaked a little different. I always

find the (what appears to be) simplest

feature and start w/ that one. Then play around

w/ it, mix some switches up and so on. Thats the only way we learn, is to be the knuckle-head

that has tried this or that. Don't be afraid

flip that switch.

 

PEACE

[HEAVY METAL]

I use seco-carboloy cutters designed for plunge roughing . up t0 2.0 dia works great. right now roughing out a 10.dia bore and letting slug drop well actually drilled two holes thru slug and bolted thru to machined blocks so it wouldnt go anywhere. .375 step over and 18 ipm