Mastercam Learning Group

[Rotary Ninja]

Is that cat all black?

[The_kid]

Not entirely he's got a little white on his chest. Funny story actually, we make fun of him cause he is black and slowly turning white like he has vitiligo (Micheal Jackson disease). Gets all grumpy when he doesn't get his 20hrs of sleep. Honestly I could take some lessons of laziness from this cat.

[The_kid]

So is 3.5hrs for programming this part too long for a rookie? I imagine once I get a bunch of op defaults and tool defs set up it would take no time at all. I'm working on my proficiency. I find myself experimenting to see how changing what will affect the results and what is best suited.

[Rotary Ninja]

Time isn't what is important here. At least for me. It's technique is what I am looking at. But no, like I said it took me longer than it did some of these other guys. But I went at it a little differently. I don't remember if MCM said how long he spent on it or not? Because his program had a somewhat similar approach because he broke up the different features of the part and programmed them individually.

 

But I wouldn't concentrate on how long it takes. At least until you don't consider yourself a rookie any more

[MotorCityMinion]

"Time isn't what is important here. At least for me." My thoughts as well. Although I consider a few of the uploaded programs to be fairly aggressive with regards to technique, I'm here to see how others would approach the same part and see if I can pull something new from it.

 

I spend quite a bit of time programming as I try to get as close as I can to net shape. Also note there are NO collisions in verify. I also try to maintain a climb cut when I can but was influenced when I saw the other programs. My background entailed 1 piece tool details and often there is only one piece of stock to work with. Tooling considerations factor into this as well. Some of the the tools I use are expensive and will only produce 1 part before getting dull. Lead ins then become critical and must be tweaked. I can't afford to be banging into excessive stock when entering a cut so I spend time on my approach.

 

Bob W spoke of custom radius tools for production work. Step drills with built in cfers and cbores would also work well in this scenario, as would custom cfer tools for the external edges but that also requires design time and a little extra thought for programming as well as more lead time to get the tooling made, usually in excess of 8 to 12 hours. Cutting the fillets short requires more hand finishing or customer approval. A 3 minute cycle time leaves very little time to de-burr and check parts. There are too many ways to approach this with out tying it down to specific parameters before getting started. The Jazz Bass in the next project: Surfacing that large scallop in the second op is timely on the machine. A custom tool could have knocked that out exponentially faster. New guys get to see that blend example and make a choice. I could have also crammed all three of the features that make up the scallop into one tool path but compression was starting to take place and I did not like the way back plot looked so it became two finishing tool paths instead.

[Calvin Lujan]

TYPE "HOME EDITION" AND YOU'LL FIND A DOWNLOAD LINK FOR 32BIT AND 64BIT VERSION OF HLE6

[Rotary Ninja]

"Time isn't what is important here. At least for me." My thoughts as well. Although I consider a few of the uploaded programs to be fairly aggressive with regards to technique, I'm here to see how others would approach the same part and see if I can pull something new from it.

 

I spend quite a bit of time programming as I try to get as close as I can to net shape. Also note there are NO collisions in verify. I also try to maintain a climb cut when I can but was influenced when I saw the other programs. My background entailed 1 piece tool details and often there is only one piece of stock to work with. Tooling considerations factor into this as well. Some of the the tools I use are expensive and will only produce 1 part before getting dull. Lead ins then become critical and must be tweaked. I can't afford to be banging into excessive stock when entering a cut so I spend time on my approach.

 

Bob W spoke of custom radius tools for production work. Step drills with built in cfers and cbores would also work well in this scenario, as would custom cfer tools for the external edges but that also requires design time and a little extra thought for programming as well as more lead time to get the tooling made, usually in excess of 8 to 12 hours. Cutting the fillets short requires more hand finishing or customer approval. A 3 minute cycle time leaves very little time to de-burr and check parts. There are too many ways to approach this with out tying it down to specific parameters before getting started. The Jazz Bass in the next project: Surfacing that large scallop in the second op is timely on the machine. A custom tool could have knocked that out exponentially faster. New guys get to see that blend example and make a choice. I could have also crammed all three of the features that make up the scallop into one tool path but compression was starting to take place and I did not like the way back plot looked so it became two finishing tool paths instead.

 

Well said. You and I think a lot alike. We just use different toolpaths to accomplish the same goal I think. I probably spend a little too much time on my programming. But having the toolpath follow the part features is important to me. And where I work, how good the part looks is almost more important than the tolerances. So I go out of my way sometimes to make a toolpath follow a shape more closely. I don't use a finish contour when a finish flowline will give a better result. That kind of stuff.

 

One thing I have learned so far... Blend is awesome. I have used it more in my programming and I get some really good results with it.

[SledGeek]

Agreed Kevin and MCM....that's why I asked about what we were trying to accomplish. Too many variables missing to program the part properly. How you approach something s directly related to what the customer specifically needs. But throwing down toolpaths and seeing other ways is a great way to add to the toolbox. IMO there is no ONE way to do anything.

 

Everything is part specific, time specific, material specific, machine specific,aesthetics, tolerancing......

[Rotary Ninja]

I agree Bill.

 

For this one... if you can imagine what the part is, program accordingly. Like the guitar project... I think we all know how nice they look. But wood is very easy to work with. So a large step-over is OK since the part will be sanded to perfection.

 

olpaths. I love programming. And I love the challenge of really, really complex parts. I spend way too much time getting a toolpath to bend to my will sometimes. But I learn from it every time something finally works exactly the way I wanted it to.

 

I know a lot of people don't have time to sit and program in their free time. So that is kind of why I was just saying do what you feel comfortable doing. If you start saying "this part has to be programmed complete" people might not want to take that much time. I think it is better to see a quick and simple approach to program a part than to not see anything at all. Step-over's and surface finish are all easy enough to correct in the toolpath parameters. The actual toolpath itself is what I am wanting to see.

 

But certainly, as these projects come around we can add some specific requirements. I just didn't want to demand too much from everyone and make this more work than it is a learning experience, or even "fun".

 

Does that make sense?

[Rotary Ninja]

How about we make "Suggested Requirements"?

[SledGeek]

Oh yeah...not debating it at all bro. I'm a single Dad with 3 kids...pffffffttttt....what free time ?! lol

I throw something out there and read thru while I'm at my desk at work......inbetween working or processing a toolpath as lots of guys do . No time at home to sign on.....lucky if I can even get on a computer ! lol

 

I guess i like the challenge of fine tuning to spec too......just can't always. I find myself getting caught up in ways to make a path work where it might not otherwise......natural curiousity:)

[Bob W.]

How about we make "Suggested Requirements"?

 

I think this is a great idea because that really drives the technique most of the time. If the part is a cosmetic model it needs to look absolutely perfect and if it is an industrial part the looks aren't that important. A classic example was a laptop LCD cover I machined a while back. The cover had to be perfect with no machine marks at all. The customer was after a grained finish and I could have faced it with a 2.5" shell mill in 30 seconds. I ended up surfacing the whole part with a parallel toolpath at .005" stepover and it took around 5 hours for that operation alone. The finish was perfect right off the machine and it met the criteria. The cost reflected the technique. Hand finishing would have resulted in some rounded corners, etc...

[Rotary Ninja]

If you guys want to do something really complex for the next project I am game.

[The_kid]

I Know I have 2 kids as well and going back to college soon. so I'm programming a lot at work and trying diffrent approaches. I found that using surfaces as drive is far superior then using the model it give more control and predictable tool paths. then getting the containment just right. I was messing around with it last night (before I crashed MC) with Bob's suggestions, using a radius mill and a ball nose endmill for the radius flowline and then a simple 2d contour. leaving only the .06 radius blend near the boss. requires more tools and operations but, this would save a significant amount of time over surfacing said areas. But I did both methods to see what is most "effective" I'm learning a ton and am very happy to be involved.

[Rotary Ninja]

If this were a production job I would say maybe I would use radius mills. But you still have the issue of the radius mill running into the female rads and there would be hand blending involved. Which is why on a production job I would probably still surface these rads. But if you used a 3D contour and blended off it could actually look pretty good. Can ya do it?

[MotorCityMinion]

Thinking about the last two responses, If I did it again with a quantity in mind, I'd go back and and create drive surfaces, then split them in the vicinity, location dependent of the rad tool diameter. 2d contour the bulk of it and flowline or blend the 3D.

 

Last shop I worked at had a bench hand / polisher with OCD who just loved tackling those kinds of fillets quickly with a Gesswein. I would confer with him prior to leaving off any fillets. He seriously reduced the amount of ridiculous programming required to get into tight areas. Saved money on tooling as well.

[SledGeek]

If it was production I definately would have done more 2d programming. The edge rads in the pockets would remain surfaced , but the bosses and the chamfers all would have been 2d as well as the boss to face rads. Then surface the small rads in on the edges and gusset. But this again depends on aesthetics profile tolerancing, etc. If you have enough pieces you can afford to get an imperfect one or two and fine tune to get 2d and 3d cuts to blend nicely. While it would be more work in toolpaths, tool set up, and geometry creation, it would definately run faster.... enough to justify and amortize over the whole run.

It's kinda funny , too, because it depends where you're working as well. If your just programming or if you have a workstation at a machine and it's your only machine. At one place, I would plan a one or two off job in my head and get it roughing while I programmed the rest. It wouldn't necessarily be the best method, but it would be one that saved more time in programming than in machining. Especially the gotta have it NOW jobs

Now I am doing mostly one offs with high tolerance forms and hardmilling and very fine micro. Like Minion said.....more planning , fine tuning, less room for error and expensive tooling to consider.

[The_kid]

yeah that was what I was talking about... where the .06 rad outside turns into the .125 inside radius I'd stop short on radius mill and blend or flowline this area. I think I can it was coming to me rather quickly but lost a ton of work when mc crashed.

[Webby]

I have created an eMC Learning Group member group. I have also added a sub-forum beneath the Educational Forum. There's a new area that does not currently appear under Downloads but is linked to from the "Resources" topic in the eMC Learning Group sub-forum.

 

In summary: being added to the eMC Learning Group currently grants you access to post in the eMC Learning Group sub-forum, access the downloads (file sharing) section for the group, access the HLE download and a higher total storage limit for uploading attachments directly to posts. We will see how this evolves but I have a few more ideas for what group members might be able to do in the future.

 

To gain access to the eMC Learning Group for now, please PM myself or Daniel Gingras.

 

Good idea. I still get problems using Filezilla to upload anything to the FTP. My files show up there 0 KB. It must be a throttling error or something. I can upload to my wife's website and my brother's FTP just fine. So I can't figure it out. Webby said he would setup a section on the website here to make it easier for everyone to upload their files to. That will make it nice so we can all just link to the files in our posts.

 

> As mentioned, this is now set up. We can discuss folder structure to keep things organized.

 

I was thinking to start this out all official like we could start a new thread for each project. Since this was just a test project to kind of gauge everyone's abilities I was thinking we could label the threads MLG - Project 1 - Project Name Here. That way the discussion focuses on the project at hand. And anyone still working on the previous project can still post in the previous project's thread and not interfere with the current project. Does that make sense?

 

> Personally, I think this makes perfect sense, especially now that the sub-forum is set up.

 

I think RayD is right and 2 weeks may be a good amount of time for everyone to get their project done.

 

Ray also suggested we put some real world limitations on each project. So lets say you have to use Mill Level 1 to complete certain projects. Or you have to program it for a certain type of machine. Things like that. I think that would be a good idea.

 

> If it ads any value, the calendar can be used to keep people informed of the schedule and which part the majority of people are working on.

[Rotary Ninja]

Woot! That sounds awesome. I haven't used the calendar on here yet. That sounds like a good idea though.

 

I sent you a PM.

 

Thanks.

[uncle_dolan]

That sounds great Webby! Thanks heaps for setting it up! I Sent you a PM too.

 

I'll hopefully have get that first project finished tonight....hopefully!

[wojtek90]

I am inn. Please let me know what can I do.

[Rotary Ninja]

I'll let Webby know to add you.

 

Welcome to the forum.

[uncle_dolan]

Hi I've uploaded the idler bracket to the ftp. I havent been able to upload emcx-6 or rar files to the forum section yet but still working on it. just look at the uncle dolan2 file...the first one didnt copy correctly and now i cant remove it from the server.

[Webby]

I have just edited the mime-type masks to allow for emcx-x files. I've also moved the first project thread to the sub-forum, but left a link (for now) in the main EDU forum so people don't think it just up and disappeared

 

Edit: I just added a "eMC Learning Group Schedule" view to the calendar:

 

 

Rotary, I'll leave it to you to add "events" to indicate when new projects are kicking off etc.