HOW DO I DO THIS?

[holewski]

Hi Im Joe i work in Canada and ive recently got a new job machining high end wooden stairs, im relatively new to mastercam although i have been through the mastercam level 1 mill course,

 

 

my current task is machining floor returns, ( these meet the handrail and sweep down to the floor)

 

the guy before me used a "surface finish parallel tool path" with a 0.02" stepover which ran the full length of the floor return. (fig 1) this resulted in a huge amount of travel time, resulting in a 4 hour cycle.

 

ive changed the machining angle to 90 degrees (fig 2) so the tool would be using the radius more efficiently, and it created a great finish (for the most part) and reduced the cycle time to 2hr .15 mins

 

however i still feel there can be more improvement.

 

in my latest trial. i used three tool paths (fig 3)

 

• the first tool path i used the surface parallel 90 degree angle ( from top to bottom) up to where the top starts to bend round.

• the second tool path was more suited to the original method (lengthwise) and this was only the top part that bends around the corner

• the third tool path was a surface blend just match up.

 

the result was pretty good, however i feel im achieving this a "down & dirty Way"

 

 

im hoping that mastercam is able to create a toolpath that stays perpendicular to the outside shape, (fig 4) i feel this would give the greatest finish.

 

 

 

I have at least 15 different hand rails that i need to make into floor returns and its vital to keep the machining strategies consistent. i just feel we haven't fully optimized our setup yet.

 

i would appreciate any help you could give me on this.

 

thanks for your time in advance,

 

 

Joe

[Brando]

hey joe

 

try the flowline path, that will do pretty much what u want as shown on the bottom pic, i havent used this one for awhile but, after you select the drive surfaces , there will be a window that pops up and you have to tell it which side of the drive surface and the direction of cut and start point, i think you just click through and it shows on the screen

[Brad St.]

Another possible option may be surface finish blend. In some instances flowline may not give you a matching flow across the surfaces depending on the UV's and this will do it for you.

 

Which version of MC are you running by chance?

[MotorCityMinion]

" the third tool path was a surface blend just match up."

 

From the the last picture, your desire is to have the tool path normal to the surface. I'm with Brad on this, SF Blend is the way I'd go. Make the two outside profiles just a little bit wider than your tool radius then use the across settings. Create a dummy drive surface, 3d swept, that follows those off set profiles, (or use the existing curves and extend the surfaces), then move that surface in Z to achieve your desired depth on the out side profiles.

 

#2. Try including the floor of the fixture and use depth limits. If depth limits fail to smooth out the tool path, you can also trim the tool path from the front or right. Project the curves you want to trim to, to the front plane then move them your desired amount in Z. This method will produce some extra motion in the vertical as the -Z will follow that trim path.

 

As for the finish, go to the Helical Solutions website site and download the Surface finish step over calculator. It's free. Personally, I'd try to go along first before I went across and see what takes longer.

[holewski]

you guys are the best!!

i used chooks to create a boundary which i used with a surface blend. this was exactly what i was after

 

thanks very much.

[Brad St.]

Well I have to give credit where it's due and Roger Peterson at Prototek (our reseller) just taught us this a couple weeks ago. I'd been banging my head for a long time using older tool paths and he brought up this one.

 

I know Roger if you read this you showed it to us years ago, what's the old saying about teaching old dogs new tricks...

 

Glad it worked!

Brad