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jlw™
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I'm doing a large aero bulk head and need tabs at the bottom of a swarf outside wall.  I created dome like surfaces for the tabs and a large flat surface under the tabs.  I used these as floor surface in new swarf worked great.  At first I had flat surface .02 above the large for the tab but this made the tool retract up in z to ride over tab.  this caused a dwell mark in the part.  That is when I realized a dome would give a fluid rise and fall over the tab removing the dwell marks.  Does this make sense?

Steve Austin

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Had a new situation come up where needing to shove a 500lb gorilla in a 5lb cage. I got many scraps, bruises and will be needing crutches for the next 6 months to recover from this one, but the gorilla took a nice swing at us this morning. I have a limited Y axis travel and almost out of Z travel with my part on a I-200 Integrex. I cannot not 3D cut the walls I am trying to cut because I will run out of Y travel so I am forced to 5 Axis machine them. I got everything setup and after running it through CAV about a dozen times got it to stay within the travel limits. I found in the tool axis control using Surface with -60 degree tilt to be the sweet spot. This morning we find out the Sheet metal is 26mm different than the actual machine in the CAV. 1 or 2 mm I would expect, but not this much. Danger Danger will Robinson comes to mind as the gorilla is swinging at me this morning fighting tooth and nail to not let us succeed at our task. I need a majority of the toolpath to run at the -60, but a small section near one of the ends to stay at -80 to keep the B axis from swinging so far in the Z positive direction, but enough to keep it within the Y axis limits, but not cause X to be out of my Z axis limits. I am already runnign the shortest Shrink fit I can and sticking the tool out to clear certain areas by .5mm. I need to create a limiting shape that will keep one area within the 80 degree range, but allow the rest of it to process on like it was. I then was thinking siting on the floor with my bloody lip and black eye what can I do? Did the gorilla just get the best of me after 6 revision changes, 10 machine environments, 6 VMC for the CAV? I got back to my seat and then developed a method. I took the toolpath and change the angle to -80 degrees that is okay for the one section. I then saved the Vectors from that one section. I then created a spline on the upper and lower vectors. I made a closed wireframe and then made a net surface of the tool running in that one area. I then offset the surface the radius of my tool the 4mm plus .5mm for clearance. I then went back to thew toolpath and use the Collision control with xxxx and picked that surface. Now one section is running like I need and the rest is wide open. The gorilla is not happy with me and he is waiting for his next turn to knock me on my butt, but he is sorely mistaken if he think I give up that easy.

 

 

I drew the manual splines top and bottom and now need to make a net surface.

 

Now I need to offset the surface 4.5mm.

 

Then I add it to the Collision Control and good to go.

No sooner than I did all of this did I realize and even simpler way to accomplish this task since I have a nice flat edge near where I am. On irregular surface areas the above will be the best way I can think of, but with a flat edge I just create a edge curve. Offset the amount I want. I then make a draft surface with 10 degree tilt and done. I need more area and was dreading having to redo the steps above and that is how I determined the next method to accomplish the same task easier.

Orange surface the first way the green surface if the draft with 10 deg tilt.

 

 

Hopefully someone will find this helpful.

Edited by crazy^millman
Pictures removed to add space
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So the above didn't get me what I need to be either. I gave it some thought and I offset from the edge the radius of the tool. I then created different draft surfaces with shifting angles. I then created a spline and drove the toolpath through it using from chain. It got me the exact control I needed where I needed it. I could have used tilt lines from the different angles saving them through back plot to make the same spline to drive the toolpath. Many ways to tame this gorilla.

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This might be an obvious one, but I'm just getting going in moldmaking.  I got a four cavity mold requiring cutters down to an extended reach .010" ball, and I'm giving it dynamic roughing paths.  Trying to feed the toolpath the whole solid at once locked up my computer after a while, even with containment boundaries for one cavity at a time, so I made four separate sold model chunks, one for each cavity.  Then they regenerated quick and easy.

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Figured this one out from a guy on reddit, actually. In the RMB customization if you make a new submenu and start adding standard views to it (ie top, bottom, left) it will automatically add a "named" submenu at the top that contains all your additional created planes in the file. That coupled with a hotkey for WCS = Cplane makes for some pretty quick plane changes.

PLANES.png

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18 hours ago, allena said:

Seedy Steve

On Page 16

Like the "User defined name" under Toolpath group  trick.

I  made mine T# (like to separate  the  different tools into tool path groups.

Can you explain what "User defined name " does under NC File does?

 

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E MASTERCAM PITCH YOUR GEM  TOOL GROUP NUMBERING question.jpg

Test it and see what it does. Each setting controls different things and depending on the users needs and preferences each one may or may not be what they need. Testing each one and see how the Mastercam output behaves will teach you what they do.

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Ran into a Model Prep issue using Remove Feature in 2023 this morning where I get the dreaded Parasolid(R) Kernel Interface Error: then we get the Could not complete removal. Old school way was to create a wireframe and then extrude round feature. Then create the surface to solid trim the flat and radius to using solid trim. Then we would Boolean add the feature to the solid to remove the feature. I used Model Prep and just create the raised round feature. Then I used Remove Feature and picked on the Top and round face and it was gone. Funny how the female shape will not remove, but the male shape will. 

Hope this is helpful to someone. Have a good day whenever you read this.

 

315371100_ModelPrepHoleIssuePic1.jpg.e446aaa66251ddbba0922a7d158f335a.jpg

 

Model Prep Hole Issue Pic 2.jpg

Model Prep Hole Issue Pic 3.jpg

Model Prep Hole Issue Pic 4.jpg

Model Prep Hole Issue Pic 5.jpg

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On 11/5/2022 at 5:59 AM, crazy^millman said:

Ran into a Model Prep issue using Remove Feature in 2023 this morning where I get the dreaded Parasolid(R) Kernel Interface Error: then we get the Could not complete removal. Old school way was to create a wireframe and then extrude round feature. Then create the surface to solid trim the flat and radius to using solid trim. Then we would Boolean add the feature to the solid to remove the feature. I used Model Prep and just create the raised round feature. Then I used Remove Feature and picked on the Top and round face and it was gone. Funny how the female shape will not remove, but the male shape will. 

Hope this is helpful to someone. Have a good day whenever you read this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have run into this in 2022 as well. A bit frustrating to get the model right. But finally, was able to extrude then remove. Male vs Female issue. FWIW the model was in pretty bad shape to begin with.

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This might be trivial but I just found this one today, MC 2023. I have a stock model which uses a large 2d dynamic mill toolpath as a source operation (using a .025 stepover on a 18 x 20" part with avoidance and air regions, ~1700K toolpath size). The stock model was taking >10 minutes to regenerate.

If I add a micro lift distance (2D dynamic mill parameters -> Cut Parameters -> Motion < Gap size, Micro lift -> Micro lift distance) that is anything but 0, the regen times goes down to 30 seconds. I assume this is because MC can ignore any section of toolpath that is micro lifted, but that's just a guess.

 

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On 3/8/2023 at 1:23 PM, Jake L said:

This might be trivial but I just found this one today, MC 2023. I have a stock model which uses a large 2d dynamic mill toolpath as a source operation (using a .025 stepover on a 18 x 20" part with avoidance and air regions, ~1700K toolpath size). The stock model was taking >10 minutes to regenerate.

If I add a micro lift distance (2D dynamic mill parameters -> Cut Parameters -> Motion < Gap size, Micro lift -> Micro lift distance) that is anything but 0, the regen times goes down to 30 seconds. I assume this is because MC can ignore any section of toolpath that is micro lifted, but that's just a guess.

 

That seems strange.  I could see it about cutting the time in half, but going from 10 minutes to 30 seconds is wild.  Just be aware that on a lot of machines, adding microlift will noticeably increase cycle times.

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Haven't read through this entire post, sorry if it's been covered, but found another little goodie that makes life easier for people with hundreds of levels... If you have a few levels visible in the Levels manager and click Hide All Levels, it does. If you click it again it shows the levels that were showing before you clicked Hide All Levels. 

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8 hours ago, Jobnt said:

Haven't read through this entire post, sorry if it's been covered, but found another little goodie that makes life easier for people with hundreds of levels... If you have a few levels visible in the Levels manager and click Hide All Levels, it does. If you click it again it shows the levels that were showing before you clicked Hide All Levels. 

How about that!

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On 11/2/2015 at 7:26 PM, jlw™ said:

No, for creating geometry.  For example, if you want to create a point a certain distance from another point I would create a point there then translate it.  If you shift-click you can type in X,Y,Z coords to put the point where you want it from the one click.  Try it with drawing lines or anything I've tried so far has worked.

oh great I was not aware about it

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On 3/23/2023 at 11:18 AM, Jobnt said:

Haven't read through this entire post, sorry if it's been covered, but found another little goodie that makes life easier for people with hundreds of levels... If you have a few levels visible in the Levels manager and click Hide All Levels, it does. If you click it again it shows the levels that were showing before you clicked Hide All Levels. 

it does the same with the show all button also

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This one's probably common knowledge. I just figured out in OptiRough you can use stock models as your stock if you select "Rest material" > "One other operation" > select a stock model in the operations list on the right. 

I'll be using this instead of exporting STL's from now on.

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4 minutes ago, Jake L said:

This one's probably common knowledge. I just figured out in OptiRough you can use stock models as your stock if you select "Rest material" > "One other operation" > select a stock model in the operations list on the right. 

I'll be using this instead of exporting STL's from now on.

I ve been using stock models in each op a lot more lately because you can now verify ops as the stock progresses. No need to verify all previous ops.

 

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24 minutes ago, Jake L said:

This one's probably common knowledge. I just figured out in OptiRough you can use stock models as your stock if you select "Rest material" > "One other operation" > select a stock model in the operations list on the right. 

I'll be using this instead of exporting STL's from now on.

This one is very handy. Only time it's not fun is when you're in real deep in the program and you decide to change a stepover or something on one of your first toolpaths, then it dirtys up the whole job.

it's like opti-rough/rest stock model inception after 4-5 different planes with varying stock models lol

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19 minutes ago, AHarrison1 said:

I ve been using stock models in each op a lot more lately because you can now verify ops as the stock progresses. No need to verify all previous ops.

 

Yup, with these op heavy I parts I do in multiple positions on a tombstone, I carry a stock model all the way through each position, the save that result as a PMesh, position that for the next rotation position and build on that carry all the next ops til the end, then rinse & repeat.

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On 9/28/2023 at 11:44 AM, Kyle F said:

This one is very handy. Only time it's not fun is when you're in real deep in the program and you decide to change a stepover or something on one of your first toolpaths, then it dirtys up the whole job.

it's like opti-rough/rest stock model inception after 4-5 different planes with varying stock models lol

That's when I hit regen, and go for a walk out on the shop floor and talk to one of the senior machinists to see if they have any issues that I can help solve.

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