CURVE 5 AXIS

[David Czerw Triumph Gear Systems]

I'm doing a curve 5 axis toolpath.Every once in a while the tool moves up in Z skips some of the path then comes back down in Z and continuing the pass. How do I keep the tool down?

[Thee Starry™]

Depends on how you want to approach the issue and what the actual cause is.

 

You could change Gap settings, toolpath tolerances or connect the lines and arcs forming the chain to prevent gaps at all.

[David Czerw Triumph Gear Systems]

I'm not familiar with gap settings in this toolpath and the toolpath tolerances are set to .002”. The chain has only 1 start and 1 exit point

[David Czerw Triumph Gear Systems]

If I set the “keep tool down within” distance too short the tool keeps popping up in “Z”. If I make the distance longer the tool stays down but doesn’t follow the geometry

[Thee Starry™]

Hhhmmm... Can you share the file or is that not allowed for the particular part/customer?

[sir Camalot]

From what you are describing it is probably the surface that you are using. There will either be gaps or the toolpath follows too close to the edge of the surface. A couple of approaches would be to use lines instead of the surfaces. I can create these from using the drive surface to generate a bad toolpath, then simulate the toolpath and save only the geometry that you need for the lines. Then go back into the toolpath and select the lines to drive the toolpath. You can use the color mask to delete the red and yellow geometry as this will give you the control lines. The other solution might be to recreate the drive surfaces to allow you to extend them further away from the chain and remove any gaps.

[gcode]

If I set the “keep tool down within” distance too short the tool keeps popping up in “Z”. If I make the distance longer the tool stays down but doesn’t follow the geometry

 

try using the advance 5X project toolpath.

It is much more tolerant of problematic surfaces

[Richard Thomas - Mastercam UK]

Another reason for skips in curve five axis is that you are using some wireframe (3D Curves) for the path were created on the edges of the surfaces that you're using for Tool Axis Control. Even very small gaps between the surface edges and the wireframe can result in jumps. If this is the case for you try using one of the Surface Edge options instead.

[Müřlıń®]

If your curve has gaps add blended splines and smooth out the gaps...

[Jim at Gentex]

If your curve has gaps add blended splines and smooth out the gaps...

 

Yep...I do that all the time.

 

Any time I see a curve toolpath that acts weird, I simply create node points on all of the splines, then create a new single spline from those points while deleting the original splines.

The gaps are eliminated and the tool follows as it should.

Works every time!!

[Tyler Robertson]

It all depends on what you're using for the tool axis.

 

If you're using Surface, and your wireframe is right on the edge of the surface it's trying to stay normal to, try extending the surface, or untrimming it. Given your pattern is wireframe, untrimming the surface is okay. The surface edge option for Cut Pattern can work 'okay' unless you have multiple surfaces and then it's really obnoxious to get everything moving in the same direction / picking the right edges.