cutting with dovetail

[duckdogers]

Just wondering if someone could help.Trying to cut surfaces in green which are undercut with a dovetail.Not sure if it is the tool I have created or what but it takes forever to generate the operation.

[JayM]

When trying to get surface toolpaths to work I always advise users to start with a big step over. This will reduce the amount of time Mastercam requires to generate toolpaths while you are tyring to get the parameters worked in. Once you have the parameters setup correctly refine your finish step down.

 

I selected just the surfaces I wanted to machine as drive surfaces and the surrounding as check surfaces instead of using containment boundaries. This also helps in toolpath generation time, few surfaces to machine one means less time generating. See the attached program.

INSERT.JOHN.MCX-7

[Jayson Kramer]

Here is my idea of cutting this surface with Flowline. I took the green surface turned into a single surface and no boundrys needed. and really clean path.

[Jayson Kramer]

Here is johns with my take on keeping the tool in the cut.

john is using the check surfaces instead of boundrys to keep the tool from going around the surfaces like you were trying with the boundry.

Also using the Direction option to give the tool a lead in and out at start and end. One this one did not build a new surface just using the ones you supplied.

 

Hope you find this helpful.

[duckdogers]

I have to have small stepover, part of mold, finish very important.I also tried making one surface(swept) and could not get it to create what I wanted.I ended up projecting a bunch of lines .001 apart in z, onto surfaces and did contour cuts.

[Jayson Kramer]

Take my Flow path and set it for .001 instead of .002 and be done.

[duckdogers]

thanks everybody for the help got to go back to work now