5 axis beginner

[loraxian]

I've been using multiaxis X6 try and make tool path for the attached photo. All I want to machine is the blade looking thing sitting on top of the half cylinder. I want to avoid the half cylinder and, obviously, the machine. Swarf milling has yielded reasonable results but it seems like I should be able to use parallel cut. I can't seem to do that without driving the tool through the part. Any suggestions?

[crazy^millman]

Take the area you want and isolate it as a surface copied onto another level. Take the cylinder surface and offset it the radius of your cutter. Use create/surface/trim/to surfaces/ Trim the one surface you are using as the drive using the offset surface as the trim to surface. Now the tool only knows to go to the end of the surface that is exactly the radius shorter than the cylinder and it will not hit. You can mess around all day with the settings and see what might work or you can old school it and make a surface like you need and be done with it. Your Choice.

[Aaron Eberhard]

There's 4 steps to creating a free-form multiaxis toolpath... Trying to do all 4 at the same time when you're a beginner is going to lead to a lot of tail chasing.. I always teach people when they're learning to just go through one at a time, and regenerate to see what happened.

 

1) Cut Pattern: Start your toolpath, and focus on getting the right pattern on the machine. Don't worry about the way the tool is tilting, what it's hitting, etc., just focus on the movement of the tool across the surface. I always set my tolerance and step over pretty coarse, so it can generate quickly. Play around until you have the right pattern. I always leave my tool axis control set to the default of "Surface with lead/lag" here.

 

2) Tool Axis Control: This is how you control how the tool contacts the surface to cut. Now's the time to adjust how the tool will tilt. So play with the Tool Axis Control settings and get the tilt looking right.

 

3) Collision Control: Now we can worry about what it will do when it hits the "half cylinder." There's lots of options here, but you probably want to "trim the toolpath" so it leaves out the gouging parts.

 

4) Linking: The last step is what to do with any abrupt stops/direction changes because of collisions. Most of the time, I set my gaps & links between slice to either "direct" or "follow surfaces," but of course it will be vary a bit based on what you're doing.

 

The last step (unlisted) is to go back to your cut parameters and make your tolerances & stepover what you'd actually like to cut with.

 

Good luck, and definitely look into some training if you're going to be serious about this.

[Bob W.]

One thing worth thinking about is the convert to 5-axis toolpath. It allows you to program the part with any of the standard 3-axis toolpaths then convert to 5-axis and add tool axis control.

[loraxian]

Take the area you want and isolate it as a surface copied onto another level. Take the cylinder surface and offset it the radius of your cutter. Use create/surface/trim/to surfaces/ Trim the one surface you are using as the drive using the offset surface as the trim to surface. Now the tool only knows to go to the end of the surface that is exactly the radius shorter than the cylinder and it will not hit. You can mess around all day with the settings and see what might work or you can old school it and make a surface like you need and be done with it. Your Choice.

 

Can you walk me a little further through this?

I've moved the blade part to another level. Then I offset the half cylinder up towards the blade. Next I'm going to trim the blade to the cylinder. Assuming I get that far - now I'm stuck. What machining stratagy would you suggest and how does it know not to rotate down into the half cylinder?

[crazy^millman]

Got a model you can share?

[Guest]

Got a model you can share?

 

What,you can't program a picture Crazy?

[loraxian]

Got a model you can share?

Yep. Thanks. That would be great.

It was orginally an Autodesk Inventor file but obviously I imported it to Mcam. What would work best?

Is there a file upload utility or something on this site?

[crazy^millman]

Yes go to the More Reply options and if not to big can go there or you can go to the pinned topic and there is the FTP that Jay allows everyone on Emastercam to use.

[loraxian]

OK Thanks again. I'm away from work now and don't have access to the file but I hope to get in there later today and will upload.

[loraxian]

I've attached the file I've been working on. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

PROP_REV3.MCX-6

[Jayson Kramer]

SO is this a project for school?

[loraxian]

SO is this a project for school?

We just got a 5 axis HAAS at our community college. I'm an instructor but have never done any 5 axis work. I wanted to get my feet wet and generate something that would show off the capabilities of a five axis machine. There is nothing at all special about the part, it was just something I was able to throw together easily however I discovered pretty fast that I'm in, a little over my head trying to generate toolpath for it.

[crazy^millman]

I am putting together something for you to help you show off the features of that machine.

[Jayson Kramer]

you came to the right place for help. what college if I may ask.

[loraxian]

you came to the right place for help. what college if I may ask.

St. Louis Community College