Optirough appears very buggy

[peon]

I've been playing with the Optirough toolpath alot in the past couple weeks. I'm finding it very buggy. On many occasions it will take a full slot cut and with the "Use core mill passes" checked, it will often start ramping BELOW your stock. NOT GOOD!!! I've been lucky to catch it in verify before smashing cutters on both issues.

 

[Goldorak]

i noticed that full cut too, especially on transition between pockets

[Redfire427]

From your backplot, I don't really see any issues. It appears your cut "Z-value" is at the top of the block where there would be minimal, if any, stock. Set your z-step value to a larger number and I'm sure you will see better results. I have not come across any issues with this toolpath so far.

 

Carmen

[peon]

They are both HUGE issues!! The Z Minimum depth is set to .160" and the helix ramp begins at .050"

[Jayson Kramer]

I too have had good results with this path. Try what Carmen said just to see results inlarge the values even by .500 and see how the results look.

[peon]

I have raised the Z min depth to .400" and that solved the helix issue, but I have not solved the issue regarding the full slot cut.

[peon]

Just sent the part to QC.

[peon]

Just got word back from QC. Apparently the issues are solved in MU1. I was able to work around by changing the "Z Minimum" value to .400". This solved the ramping issue. I also changed the "Motion > Gap size, retract" from "Never" to "When avoiding a boundary AND exceeding a distance" and set the "Gap size" distance to 2.25". That solved the slot cutting issue. I'm just glad it is fixed in MU1 and hopefully we'll see that patch soon.

[peon]

Just optiroughed 2 more parts and they both skipped past the roughing procedure and went directly to the step-up procedure. I changed the tool definition to a flat mill rather than a bull nose and all the slot cutting problems were solved.

[neurosis]

Ive had some serious issues using bullnose endmills for both 2d roughing and optirough. It doesnt seem to know that there is stock left where the radius on the back side of the tool passes and on some back travels it shoots through that stock/large cusp at your high feed rate (some times for me up to 1000ipm, giving some very bad results.

 

I havent had enough time to play with optirough to find out if it does it in all situations but I have seen it happen once already.

[peon]

It's certainly hit and miss. I programmed 12 trodes without any issue using bull nose cutters. I got thru the last part by drawing a custom bullnose tool on a level and defined it in the library as "undefined" without a corner radius. That way I'll have an accurate .stl model after verifying and so I can reference the roughing stock in the Rest Rough toolpath.