Headstone Plaque for friend.. will not regenerate on smaller tools

[RayEdwards]

hi guys i have uploaded a zipped mx5 file called MARK HEADSTONE70414.zip to the unspecified uploads sub directory of the mastercam forum folder on the FTP site.

i have been trying for 3 days now to generate the toolpath for this plaque..... i want to rough using 12mm, 6mm ,4mm and then finsh with 2mm flat and 1 mm end mill.

 

i first tried Surface High Speed machining using area clearance and then rest roughing....but when i got down to the 2mm it would not regenerate...

 

i then tried it but using surface rough pocket and then restmill and the restmill passes seem to redo where the previous tool should have machined. i get to 4mm roughing and end up with 20+ machine hours just for the 4mm restmill path...

 

i then read on the forum about saving the verify of the previous restmill path as a STL and using that as stock and then restmill with next tool... but i end up with the same .. can someone suggest a method to do this .... the mcx5 file is 40meg is there a way i can reduce the file size of this solid ... i modeled it in mastercam...any help would be appreciated.....this is a love job

 

 

Ray

[Aaron Eberhard]

Hola Ray,

 

(Un(?))Fortunately, it's been quite a while since I've used a computer X5 installed, so I used X6 here, but I put the file up on the FTP for you if you can open it. One big thing I did was to stop driving the rest machining off of a CAD File, and instead built a Stock Model through each step.

 

That gave me the drive geometry for rest machining, which processes a lot faster.

 

On the 2nd toolpath (6mm cutter), I set the "rest machining' parameters to "ignore small cusps," so it wouldn't try to get as many tiny corners. This resulted in a smaller toolpath than yours did as well.

 

Then I generated a stock model from that toolpath as well.

 

After that, I jumped right to the 2mm cutter, as I don't think the 4mm was really getting that great of a workout, and by controlling your step-over, you'll get the same material removed with less time than running the 4mm in between. I don't know exactly how long it took to generate, but on my system, driving the 2mm cutter against the Stock Model from the 6mm cutter probably took between 5 & 10 minutes.

 

Using this method caused the whole file to only be ~50mb with stock models included. I verified the output so you can see what I got, if you look in the same place, I put a copy there called 'MARK HEADSTONE70414 - ACE.zip"

 

Best of luck with the project.

[RayEdwards]

i really appreciate the legup aaron... i cant open that as we are still running x5.....can you save it as a mcx-5 please

[Aaron Eberhard]

Sorry Ray, I won't have a chance to install X5 today or hunt down a lab computer with it (if any still have it on?)..

 

I've added a few pictures of my workflow to hopefully help you out, though. I'm replying here instead of to the PM (Personal Message) you sent, in case this helps others out as well.