Toolpath for roughing out a radius

[Hertz]

Hey guys, I have a part that I am cutting, its a 6.25x5 inch block that is 1.625 thick. I need to put a radius in. I am going to finish with a surface flowline and a ballnose however I need to rough it with a 1/2" flat endmill. (Limited tooling). Material is 1018. What toolpath is the best to keep a somewhat controlled scallop, while still maintaining the most tool engaged possible? Part looks like this. Radius of the hole is 11/16".

[htm01]

why not just run the ball down the center then do surface parrallel?

[Hertz]

Parallel doesn't give me enough control for scallop height. I have to get the surface as best possible. I forgot to say as well the radius is 11/16".

[Joe788]

There are lots of ways to do it, but one something simple like this, I like to just do exactly what I know will work:

 

Peel mill path right down the middle to clear out a nice deep channel. Then:

 

Use Edit>Trim/Break>Break circles, to break the arcs at the ends of your parts into little .050 or so segments.

 

Draw a line from the endpoint of one of those little segments, to the matching endpoint of the segment on the other end of the part (straight line, parallel with the direction of your groove)

 

Switch to the right side view, and Xform>Rotate>Copy that line around the floor of your groove so it draws a bunch of lines about .050 apart from each other.

 

Now you just do a 2D contour path. Select the lines in order from bottom to top. Set the depth to incremental, and you have a nice optirough type path that will preserve your endmill corners.

 

There are surely more elegant ways of doing it, but it all depends on if you want to take the time to tinker around, or just get it done.

 

 

(Edit: Just saw that you said the radius is only 11/16. I was thinking it was a lot bigger.)

[Guest]

Surface rough flowline?

 

Finish with a flowline or even a Wireframe 2D swept

[crazy^millman]

Here you go. See if that gives you some ideas how a crazy person would machine it. Says it will rough the slot in 23 seconds so I will say more like 55 seconds. Then you can go the OPTI-REST to rough the walls using that Peel mill operation. The Waterline to Finish the wall all HST operations.

 

I like the Peel Mill and the last group of toolpaths best. Surface Finish Contour Bottom Up to semi Finish the wall. The Flowline using split surfaces to start at the bottom and work your way down to the floor. Notice the split is .01 over lap I find overlaps work better than trying to come to the same edge. Normally I make the overlaps the same as my step over. In this case .01 to give you some ideas. Also Flow line give you the ability to go past the part where as the HST are greta, but still lack some basic functionality flow line just rocks with. Start to finish model and everything was 12 minutes.

[Hertz]

I will be finishing with a flowline. I tried playing with the flowline rough and I couldn't get it to cut properly. I was probably doing it wrong, however when I was trying to control the depth, it kept trying to go to the bottom. I will try it again though and if I have an issue I'll post back. Thank you.

Thank you as well Crazy. I will definitely take a look.

[GoetzInd]

+1 for finishing with flowline. That's one I wish they would update to the new tree style. I hope they don't dump it.

 

Mike

[Newbeeee™]

I'd use flowline rough and flowline finish.

 

Wireframe 2D swept JP??? Hmmmmmm - might have to try that as never used it.

[Newbeeee™]

+1 for finishing with flowline. That's one I wish they would update to the new tree style. I hope they don't dump it.

 

Mike

 

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS (please update to new tree style).

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (please DON'T DUMP IT!!!!!!!!!!).

[Pilot Plant Supervisor]

I am machining a very similar shape right now. I used HST core roughing, and tried several options for finishing. Flowline works except I get a climb cut on one side, and conventional on the other. Waterline gave me climb cut on both sides, but the radius on my part gets larger over the length so the transitions in the bottom of the groove had poor finish. Sometimes these parts that look simple give me the biggest headache!

[crazy^millman]

Pilot did you by chance download or read my example above? By breaking the radius into 2 surfaces you get all the control you want with flowline. With Step, Direction and Start I can make flowline do everything I want. I use the same process on 5 axis toolpaths a lot. Surfaces are not a good flowline I will take the time and remodel an area so I can get the correct flowline process. Or I will use blend and then convert to 5 axis to get what I want. If you are on X7 download my example and you will see I did it both ways with all HST and then with a Mix of HST like Joe Said with Peel and then Surface Finish Contour and Flow line to finish. You could change flowline to one way to get a climb mill toolpath down both walls to the floor very quickly the key is splitting the surface and doing it in a way where you get the overlap.

 

HTH

[Oscar R.]

Here you go. See if that gives you some ideas how a crazy person would machine it. Says it will rough the slot in 23 seconds so I will say more like 55 seconds. Then you can go the OPTI-REST to rough the walls using that Peel mill operation. The Waterline to Finish the wall all HST operations.

 

I like the Peel Mill and the last group of toolpaths best. Surface Finish Contour Bottom Up to semi Finish the wall. The Flowline using split surfaces to start at the bottom and work your way down to the floor. Notice the split is .01 over lap I find overlaps work better than trying to come to the same edge. Normally I make the overlaps the same as my step over. In this case .01 to give you some ideas. Also Flow line give you the ability to go past the part where as the HST are greta, but still lack some basic functionality flow line just rocks with. Start to finish model and everything was 12 minutes.

 

Crazy, hope you don't mind. I barrowed some of your example file and add my 2 cents.

 

I made a peel mill toolpath and used it as a source for a projected toolpath onto the surface, as a rough operation with a ball endmill. One can use your flat endmill peel mill to rough the center and follow with a ballmill projected peel mill to clean it up before using flowline to finish the surface.

Or just the projected peel mill as a rough all on it's own leaving stock to finish.

 

I've used this on some softer materials. Would love to see if it would work on something like 1018.

 

Hope this helps.

[crazy^millman]

Crazy, hope you don't mind. I barrowed some of your example file and add my 2 cents.

 

I made a peel mill toolpath and used it as a source for a projected toolpath onto the surface, as a rough operation with a ball endmill. One can use your flat endmill peel mill to rough the center and follow with a ballmill projected peel mill to clean it up before using flowline to finish the surface.

Or just the projected peel mill as a rough all on it's own leaving stock to finish.

 

I've used this on some softer materials. Would love to see if it would work on something like 1018.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Never I love people helping each other we are all different what makes this place great. I never claim to have all the answer just try to give one I have is all. Thanks I appreciate you doing it.

[Pilot Plant Supervisor]

Yep, saw that Crazy. Thanks for the examples. I did think of that as I was trying to get a good finish path, but at that point, I didn't want to split my solid because about thirty other operations would go dirty. Next time I'll try to get that stuff out of the way before I start toolpathing.

[Hertz]

I can't open the example. I have X6.

[crazy^millman]

Herta heading out the door, but first thing in morning I will post up the stuff in an X6 format if someone else does not beat me to it.

[Hertz]

That would be great. I did however just do the peel mill with different steps for the time being but I would definitely still like to see your examples. Appreciate that.

[fastercam]

I just programmed a channel similar to this in titanium, but on a 5" radius.

I capped the ends of the channel with a 1/4 sphere,

then roughed and finished it with "Surface High Speed Scallop".

 

Use the top of the channel as your containment boundary.

Started the toolpath from the bottom and worked it up the channel with a .0003 scallop.

The tool never retracts and repositions.

 

 

[crazy^millman]

Hertz, X7 file with the same toolpaths and settings is 2.6mb and the X6 file is 12.5mb so here is the .z2g.

 

HTH

[Hertz]

Thank you sir. Will check it out later tonight.

[crazy^millman]

Great topic and nice to see many different ways people go about the process to get the work done. That is what is great about this forum some person who calls us stupid for using.

[Newbeeee™]

Ron / Oscar,

Thanks for the sample files - I just looked at them.

I'd never have thought of peel milling to rough the rad 'lengthways' and I'd never ever have thought of projecting the peelmill toolpath to rough the rad.

[crazy^millman]

Newbeee Peel mill is a toolpath I use to rough 3D parts. I like all the stuff down in HST, but core rough is not my goto toolpath. Opti-Rest is more elegant a toolpath that Opti-Core. With Peel in a situation like this I can rough exactly what I want. I liked X6 in that with shaped like this is did not need to clear out the corner that X7 does. I am going through a part I do not need it to care. Trim the toolpath does not work on it and using the editor to get rid of it is just not worth it so I take the change and either will just add to the end or just let it clear the corner with 23 seconds cuts what is a couple milliseconds among friends.

[Hertz]

+1 to peelmill. I love that toolpath and use it as much as I can. For this part I basically drew a staircase from the right side view, translated it to my length and peel milled the required steps for roughing. Works a treat and removes all the material promptly.

On another note, I like the way the radius is split in the sample you provided Crazy. I used it and will use it from now on to control the climb milling. Some stuff is so simple you wonder why we machined the other way for so long, lol.

Thanks again.