Zig Zag question.

[DavidJackson]

Hi there,

 

Regardless of any rights and wrongs in doing so, (& besides using surface project) is there an easy way to achieve what is in the image attached?

(The job in the picture was done with 2d contour/comp off zigzag geo)

 

Thanks in advance for anything - David J

 

 

[Thee Awbade™]

I'm a little confused as to what you're trying to accomplish, you want the toolpath to go over the edge and smooth that out?

[DavidJackson]

Man i am hopeless at explaining things,

 

I.e. if that path was surface parallel, the lines would obviously be parallel, stepping in the Y+ direction by the stepover amount in this part,

 

In the showen part, instead of going Y0, X0->X100 conventional then Y(0+stepover), X100->X0 climb,

it would move the stepover amount(Y) at the same time as the X movement, to create

a zig-zag looking path with no y move at the end, (i.e. have a constantly changing engagement angle.)

[K2csq7]

Assuming you want the cut to start at X + and move up and down in Y while stepping over in the X - direction.

 

 

Draw a line at the right side of your geo 1/2 your cutter up in Z.

Switch to the right T/C plane.

Contour the line, set comp to off, use ramp with whatever depth you want the "stepover" to be and set your depth (linking params) to the overall width of your part.

Backplot that path & save the backplot as geo.

Switch back to Top T/C plane and now you can just chain the geo you created from backplot.

You will have to delete the lines created by retracts & maybe tweak a couple other things.

 

BTW I got your explanation on the 1st post, Good luck following my explanation... lol

[CJep]

How about a surface finish blend?

 

use two chains at the upper & lower edge of the surface as the blend curves, in the finish blend parameters set the cutting method to spiral, to keep the tool from retracting go to the gap settings, set the gap size to 5000% and I set the gap motion to direct.

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

Oh, good idea. Any sort of parallel path set to one way with direct or follow surface should do something like that. Now if you don't mind my asking, why do you want it that way?

[DavidJackson]

Hey thanks kindly guys, much appreciate your time.

 

Matthew,

Just to learn something new really, It seemed like it should be possible and that hopefully It would lead on to learning something else and so on, My learning trail had gone a bit stale lately.

Thanks again for your input.