Hybrid toolpath not working so well

[Bob W.]

I am programming a cavity with pretty simple geometry and 50% of the time I am getting an error that the toolpath can't find a valid machining zone. Since these take a while to calculate it can set one back a few hours pretty easily. Anyone else having this issue?

[Bob W.]

Initially this toolpath was working fine and I was using it for finishing. I decided to add a semi-finishing pass so I copied the operation and added .005" to leave on the floors and walls and it will not work.

 

As for the cavity... Imagine the cavity on a phillips screw head. Now make that 15" across and 3" deep and there you have it. It looks like it is made for a giant phillips screwdriver.

[Bob W.]

Ugh... So here I am after hours. It is Bob vs. Mastercam, and this match-up goes back ages, only this time it is X5. Who will win... The machine sits idle, blood pressure rising, beads of sweat forming... Stay calm, stay calm, DEEP BREATH... Time to settle in for a looong night.

[Chris Rizzo]

Hi Bob, can you send the part to me? (or maybe just a section of it).

 

Another random thought: when screwing around with surface toolpaths I'll set my tolerance way, way high just so the thing generates and I can see if I'm in the ball park (ha pun ). Then when the motion looks good lower the tolerance back down and head to the fridge for a beer. Another thing I'll do sometimes when experimenting on huge parts is make a little containment of just a small section.

[Bob W.]

I usually do that with the tolerances and I had this running on the machine but I just wasn't happy with how it was going so I decided it needed a semi-finishing pass. I copied and original hybrid toolpath and left the tolerance tight and didn't think anything of it. It puked right at the end so I made an adjustment and tried again and it puked again. Now I am out an hour and I just need to get the part done so I am reverting to the old method. I am using six HST toolpaths, three for semi finish and three for finish. I need to get this running and then I'll look into sending the file.

[Bob W.]

Aaaah, running again. Blood pressure dropping

 

No Hybrid tho...

[Bob W.]

Funny thing is, I installed X5 last night, several weeks before I had planned to, ONLY because Hybrid was the perfect toolpath I needed. Its like it was made for this part.

[Redfire427]

I played around with the new toolpaths today myself and had a strange thing happen. I programmed a cavity using the hybrid toolpath and it cut the entire cavity.........twice. I had a hard time believing this, but that's what happened. Also, the toolpath needs a lot of refinement in future releases. When you select "climb cutting", it doesn't actually climb cut the walls of the cavity. What needs to happen is to have the toolpath cut in a counter-clockwise direction on a cavity above the break angle, and then change direction, clockwise, to cut the areas below the break angle. There is a big difference between climb cutting the model, and climb cutting the stock. Ideally, you want both.

 

Carmen

[Bob W.]

I had the climb cutting issue as well. There is a protrusion in the middle of the cavity and it machined portions of that conventionally.

[The_Evil_Machinist]

When you select "climb cutting", it doesn't actually climb cut the walls of the cavity.

 

So I wasn't goin crazy... Good to know I'm not the only one that noticed that. I just said F-it and set it to zig zag.

[Bob W.]

Bedtime (1:39am) Bob = 1, Mastercam = 0

[Bob W.]

I programmed a cavity using the hybrid toolpath and it cut the entire cavity.........twice

 

Too bad you don't get to bill the customer twice

[Müřlıń®]

Too bad you don't get to bill the customer twice

 

Wow sounds like a bad dream...lol

 

The Hybrid was one of the big things about X5.

 

I hope they take another look at it and patch it.

 

I haven't had a chance to use it yet.

[thehogger]

the only problem I have found so far is if I pick conventional, the entry might climb in then the cut goes to conventional, but if I change the helix to say from .3 to .25(can be any values) then it will conventional helix in then conventional cut...the main thing the only thing that was change was the helix radius...weird I think unless I am missing something

[peon]

I have tried this path on a few parts. Totally useless to me when it repeatedly chokes on the invalid machining zone error.

[Ocean Lacky™]

repeatedly chokes on the invalid machining zone error.

 

I just discovered something about this path...If you reverse the direction of the containment boundary, it MAY work

[peon]

I'll give that a shot next time it fails Ocean. I finally have a cavity block with some simple geometry and the toolpath worked very well.

[Bob W.]

When it works it does great. I can still only get it to work 50% of the time and these are simple cavities. I will try reversing the containment boundary as mentioned above.

[peon]

I have been having much better success with the hybrid toolpath. I normally crunch most finish toolpaths to a .0002" tolerance. If the hybrid fails, I'll incrementally add .0002 to the tolerance until it succeeds. At times, I may be down to a .0008-.001" tolerance before the toolpath will work.

[Rstewart]

Digging this thread back up....

 

Tried Hybrid for the first time today, with a lot of disapointment. I could get it to work, unitl I enabled "use Z depth limits". I then got the invalid Machining Zone warning. This part was in the vise so I had to set depth limits. Looked good on YouTube videos I've seen before I tested it myself.......

Anymore breakthru's ?

[peon]

I hope they have some improvements on the MU release. I noticed it will blow through surfaces and solids from time to time. Luckily I have caught it on verify before destroying the steel and cutters in the machine.

[David Conigliaro CNC Software Inc.]

Please send all files in question to [email protected] and cc me at [email protected]. We have fixed many issues in X5 MU1 and I'd like to run your parts through.

[peon]

The next time I find this issue I will certainly send it in. I don't recall which files caused me the grief cuz I used different toolpaths to finish the parts and I'm too swamped to find the files and apply the long crunching hybrid toolpath at this time. I have seen the surface violations on at least three different solid models. I even remember converting the solids to surfaces and that did not resolve the issue. These were not slight violations of the surfaces/solids either, the cutter path completely blew through the model.

[bmilford]

I've had the same trouble, cuts right through the surface like it wasn't there.

[Thee Rickster ™]

It cant be as bad as trying to regenerate waterline rest paths when you change some or all

geometry!

 

Toolpath 0.3k haunts me endlessly because it takes the same amount of time to regen it

and get NO PATH at all....

 

3rd try and rebooted twice already.....