facing

[Thoob]

Hi guys, if you have a weird shaped part as in not square or round and you want to face it, how do you go abouts to do it without cutting air? I have a part that is basically shaped like a Y. I have to face it to a specific height but don't want to be cutting air at the bottom or gouging at the top.

[Guest]

Auto Angle

[Thoob]

Ahh, nice. Thank you sir.

[Rotary Ninja]

If that works for you, you can get more control over which piece of geometry you cut tangent to by right-clicking in the angle field, select ANGLE MENU>>ONE LINE. You can then pick which line you want your toolpath to follow. I use this in surfacing toolpaths, facing, etc. Works great.

 

This will still have you cutting air. And the toolpath won't go with the part shape. If I were cutting a Y shaped part I may create geometry around the outside perimeter, and do a contour toolpath with multi-passes turned on if need be. Set the stock to leave at a negative value to cut past the center line of the shape. Here is facing at an auto-angle vs a contour path. Same feeds and speeds and stock being removed. Look at the cycle times...

 

[Rotary Ninja]

These are just ideas. You don't have to use a facing toolpath to face a part. You could even use a pocket or a Point to Point toolpath to achieve what you want.There is more than one way to skin a bullfrog

 

HTH

[MotorCityMinion]

Facing, Dynamic as the method may work. In backplot you can see the distance traveled as well as the time (see Ninja pics above) and compare all the different tool paths strategies.

 

My usual method is to bisect the geometry, that is to say create center lines, use 2d contour and chain the lines in both directions, using a negative stock to leave by a small value, just past the radius of the insert. In your case this may yield only four moves. In other shapes I"ll multi-pass then use the trim function.

[NOTW Programmer]

These are just ideas. You don't have to use a facing toolpath to face a part. You could even use a pocket or a Point to Point toolpath to achieve what you want.There is more than one way to skin a bullfrog

 

HTH

You eat bullfrogs ? Je je =/

[Rotary Ninja]

Taste like chicken but better. They serve frog legs at some of the restaurants here.

[TK-32™]

You learn something erry day. Well, enough learning, back to beer.