Surface High Speed Waterline controlling Z

[Newbeeee™]

Hi all,

Anyone know if it's possible at all to control the Z for the waterline toolpath?

The tool always sits off of a floor by a weird value such as 9 microns or whatever. It gets very close but never to the CAD models absolute value.

Changing the filter gets it closer but never 'spot on'.

Cheers

[?Mark]

In short, no. You can play with "z" steps and "limits" to get close, but you will always need separate toolpath for floors, with "horizontal area" being my fav.

Hybrid might get you closer...

[Newbeeee™]

Mark,

Thanks for the reply. It would be nice if the waterline 'matched' the CAD model, Z for Z. If we wanted it to keep off the Z, we could always put a value in the stock to leave.

I'm not hugely experienced in these paths to be honest, and horizontal area although does a good job, cuts too much air for my liking. That said, it's probably me and my settings...

 

Edit - I will add that virtually all or work is prismatic type electrical enclosures. And we have edited the Z depth's in NCPlot to get the correct output, to stop any miss-match on the machine.

Not ideal I know but it gets the job out

[?Mark]

I think the "horizontal area" is one of the most efficient toolpaths. It faces flats like nobody's business. Lead in looks a bit "inefficient" with default settings, but can be easily tweaked.

 

[Newbeeee™]

The biggest 'problem' I found with horizontal area, is if we're finishing an enclosure with a lot of raised tapped pillars, the path makes a complete meal skimming the top of the pillars. So we just throw a line of geometry on the pillar top and contour off (so centreline cut) and one pass across and all is done.

I'll have a play on the next project - I could always do the pillar tops as normal (2d one cut), then verify and save all as stl and finish from that, so the Horizontal path would ignore the pillars.

Food for thought... you got me thinking on a Friday now

[?Mark]

Do you pick the entire model and restrict the toolpath by means of containment, or do you just pick flats?

[Newbeeee™]

The whole model - waddayu thunking???

[cobra95kev]

For some reason on waterline if the radius on your tool matches the fillet exactly the same mastercam will not machine all of the way to the floor. It leaces just a little bit. Try selecting all of your model except for the fillet radii.

 

HTH

Kevin C.

[?Mark]

..