Can I machine a .stl file only? without and surfaces

[justind]

Hello everyone out there in mastercam land - I got a dilema and was wondering if anyone had the answers i need or be able to convert a file for me. I have posted a .stl file in the unspecified downloads folder called bear-25k.stl - if ya open it up you'll see its a pretty cool .stl on a bear. My problem is, I need to make some tool path on that thing and have no surfaces. I have brought the .stl in my student version of solid works and its shaded and looks great, but have no way to get an iges with surfaces from the .stl file. If anyone one could help me out on this I would really appreciate it. It would be cool if mastercam could just machine the .stl file, but I don't think it supports that, if it does I have no clue how - I know when you do typical surfacing there an option to check to cad file, nothing saying I can machine a .stl file all by its self. I wish our seat of vericut supported model exporting or i could get and iges out of there, but its way to much money for that option.

I hope when things pick up here I'll be able to get a seat of solidworks so I can open up stuff like this .stl and get a good iges for mastercam. Well I better get back to the grind, hope everyone is haven a good day

[Christian Raebild]

In Mastercam, you do need at least one surface in order to machine a CAD file, but that can be a flat surface below your STL file.

 

With appropriate toolpath boundaries, that should let you machine your STL file, without having the tool going down to the surface.

[Müřlıń®]

quote:

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In Mastercam, you do need at least one surface in order to machine a CAD file, but that can be a flat surface below your STL file.

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Uda man

 

I always wondered how to machine STL's.

 

*****searches for Hasp*****

 

I must check that out

 

 

Murlin

[Jean-Simon]

I'm sorry Chris or maybe I'm the only one but I can machine a STL without any surfaces on the screen, just a containment. I did apply a toolpath but man that' a full size bear, I scaled it to be more realistic. Justin are you planning to machine this? HTH!

 

Simon!

[PE @ IHS]

I do not believe you need any surfaces to machine an STL. I just programmed an STL File with Drive and Check surfaces turned off. It prompted me for the CAD file (I brought in the STL) and the toolpath was applied to it without and boundaries, check or drive surfaces. Feel free to correct me if I am missing something...

[crazy^millman]

Well that is alot of what we get here for the SAL's and now and then they want us to machine those parts. I was told that you can use wifreframe toolpaths to do the surfacing and it will work. I have not tried it yet. But I see them in the ops manger when doing configs in it.

 

Crazy Millman

[Müřlıń®]

Do alot of peeps use STL's?

 

They sure do take a long time to open up.

And the files are huge.

 

 

Murlin

[crazy^millman]

Well we do a ton of SAL parts here problay close to 100 different ones a week easy maybe more not really sure but I know it is a alot. So time and agian some have to have molds desgined for them or something to that effect been lucky enough lately to get the files i have needed. I normal take the STL turn into a wirefram and recreat the soild from that if I have to machine them.

 

Crazy millman

[justind]

Thank you fellas for the input - I need to play with it a little more, but do have toolpath actually created now. I need to make some boudaries, and do some tweaking, but I think I'll be able to do what I want now. Yup Jean, I was gonna scale the bear to 24" in length and attempt to make this thing. It would of been alot easier if I had an iges, but this using a cad file thing should work fine. I do have one more question. Is it possible to shell a solid using a .stl? If so that owuld work great in creating some good surfaces. I was planning on putting this thing on a rotary add on one of our 5 axis machines and do the thing in one op.

[Allan]

What Christian said was true in V7 and V8, The V9 allows the use of a STL file on its own.

 

STL machining will give faceted results (worse with sloppy STL tolerances) so keep this in mind.

 

HTH

 

Allan

[CAM-mando]

Take a look HERE

 

CAM teh alternative

 

[ 09-05-2003, 01:06 PM: Message edited by: CAMmando ]

[Müřlıń®]

quote:

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I normal take the STL turn into a wirefram and recreat the soild from that if I have to machine them.

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What software do you use for that?

 

Sometimes I would like to make surfaces off my NCI and put them in a drawing.

If Mastercam will do this fill me in

 

Murlin

[crazy^millman]

Well if we could get Gizmo to send us that STL chook like he did in the past might be easy. The wireframes I create are from 2d views of the part at different z height it is a real pain in the rear. I do what I got to do when the job has to be done.

 

Crazy Millman

[P_Scott]

justind,

 

You do not need to convert the STL into anything else to be able to machine it. You don't even need to read it into Mastercam. With a surface toolpath, if Drive surfaces is on "N" and CAD file is "Y", a windows style browse box will open if there isn't any geometry on the screen and you can machine an STL that you have in some other directory on the computer. This is true of about any other CAD file that Mastercam can normally convert (Parasolid, SAT, IGES, etc...). Personally I would rather machine an STL file than an IGES file. IGES is one of the messiest formats one can convert in Mastercam. It's OK if there's nothing else. There's a lot of "cleanup" involved if one wants to adequately machine an IGES. JMHO

[Jody]

millman,

 

that chook is on jays ftp site under chooks.

 

Jody