Is any one else STILL having fits with containment?

[jlw™]

Well, I still fight containment.  Particularly on the Area Rough and Dynamic Rough paths.

On the tool path tab you have the Containment Boundary box and Stay Inside or From Outside which I perceive to be the "attack method" as it changes the strategy and will use ramp and dig in on the inside or it will rapid and feed in from the outside.  I get it, strategy.

 

Then, on the "Tool Containment" tab you have Inside, Center and Outside.  I find most of the time Mastercam totally ignores what I select on this page.  It will stay inside if I pick Stay Inside but only if I do.

 

Just freakin do it.

 

Any one at CNC wants the file, it's yours, just ask for it.  I'll set it up with what I'm seeing.

 

Man, containment frustrates me more than anything right now.

[jlw™]

From outside and stay inside:

 

outside and center:

 

the strategy differences:

from outside

stay inside

[jlw™]

Notice, on the last pic, stay inside strategy it honored the "center" setting but otherwise it does not.  Does this drive any one else absolutely bonkers?  Man I could chew 16 penny nails right now.

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

Yeah, that bugs me too.  You have to add an offset distance until it behaves.

[jeff]

One thing I noticed just the other day is the 2D Dynamic Mill toolpath didn't respect my containment when I merged a new chain into the existing file!

 

Backtrack a week. I created a 2D Dynamic toolpath, everything was fine. 

Customer changed the shape of the part by adding a small angle, I merged their geometry into my good file, reselected the new stuff and BAM... my containment was all FUBAR. Nothing worked, not even creating a new toolpath from scratch.

 

After pulling my hair out for an hour, what ended up fixing it was putting the new geometry on the same level as the original geometry when the toolpath was first created.

 

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

Report those details please, it may help them track down the issue.

[jeff]

Report those details please, it may help them track down the issue.

Will do

[Colin Gilchrist]

Hi Jeremy,

 

It's not your fault you are frustrated. There are a bunch of controls in the "Tree style" paths that are "common controls", and are present, even when they "aren't used" the way you think they should be.

 

It also helps to understand the history of how Containment Boundaries came about, and how they are used today.

 

We needed more control

 

• At first, a Containment Boundary was used as a "limit" to a particular path. You could use a Chain with the Parallel Tool Path, or Surface Finish Contour, and that wireframe chain (boundary) was based on "limiting" the location where the tool would cut. Surface Finish Contour in particular was kind of "bad" about respecting "where" the surface "normal faces" were. SFC would "wrap" around any selected surface(s) or solid face(s), cutting both the front side (good), and the 'back side' (bad), which would wipe out your whole part. If you actually had "surfaces" on all sides of the shape you were cutting (think something like a Pyramid), then SFC would just "wrap" around your whole model, which was OK.
• But, if you just wanted to cut "one area" or "one wall", you almost always had to end up creating a 2D Chain (boundary) to limit where the tool could cut, and where it wasn't allowed. With Tool Paths that respected "Check Surfaces", it gave you the programmer a lot of fine control, (albeit, manual control) about where the tool would go.
• For these "surface paths" the 'Containment Options' - Inside, Center, Outside, were used to adjust where the tool could travel. Is the tool supposed to stay "completely inside" (with optional offset) that Chain? Or allowed to go to the Centerline? Or allowed to go Outside (with optional offset).
• Containment Boundaries first came about before the Dynamic and Opti toolpaths. Back in the good old V9 days, the best Roughing routine we had was "Surface Rough Pocket", which was a basic 3D Pocketing Routine. (I'm sure the Developers would take umbrage with my use of the word "basic", there are a lot of good controls in that path.)
• For Surface Rough Pocket, (and the Opti Paths), the Containment Boundary is a Material Boundary. The control is 're-purposed', and tells Mastercam the Shape and Height of the Material Block that you are cutting the part from.
  • For these "Material Boundaries", starting with Surface Rough Pocket, the "restricting" aspect of the Containment Boundary was changed to use the control for a new purpose: to pass the "material extents" to the algorithm, so that some very basic "stock awareness" was built into the path. At that point, the Inside/Center/Outside options don't really make a lot of sense. For the first couple iterations of these new Roughing paths, the Inside/Outside behavior was controlled with the Inside/Center/Outside boundary setting.
  • As the Opti paths evolved, using this Material Boundary with Inside/Center/Outside stopped making sense, so they added the "From outside", "from Inside" switches on the Geometry Selection section, to pass your real intent to the algorithm. Do you want to Machine "Inside out", or from the "Outside in"? The path uses these switches to choose the method on how to cut your part.
  • With Opti, if you use the "From outside" option, the path will try and machine only from the outside. If it encounters areas that cannot be cut from the outside, it will switch to an "inside out" path in those areas. You can restrict "where" the tool will plunge with the "skip pockets smaller than" option on the "Entry" page, or by covering a hole with a surface and adding it to the Drive.
• So really, the "Containment" mindset and tools really only apply to a sub-set of all the Tool Paths that have these Controls available. They don't get used for the Roughing paths (that I'm aware of). Only for some of the 3X Legacy and HST paths, where the boundary is a "restriction" to the cut area, and isn't tied into a "material definition".
• In some cases, the Inside/Center/Outside option would basically "offset" your 2D chain, and therefore change the "size" of your Material Boundary, either shrinking or expanding the size (without you having to physically modify the geometry).

Hope that helps,

 

Colin

[BCW]

Im sure its being calculated in some way. If I do a optirough from outside in I always choose .1 offset to the stay outside field. This allows for the stock to grow or to be offset in the jaws slightly without over engaging material on the first cut. There is an option for this in 2d dynamic mill "First pass offset" but it is missing from optirough, so this is my workaround.

[Thee Rickster ™]

I wish i could control how it cuts the inside of inserts that I mount on a plate.

The peel mill is very inefficient. I would prefer an area clearance type path on the inside of

something like this.

 

Like the outside cut.......

 

 

 

.

 

[BenK]

Thee Rickster ™, you have a lot of control on how you cut shapes like this. Area roughing toolpath is still an option if you don't like the Opti path. Or you can set the retract in the Opti path so it acts more like the old path. Personally I think the algorithm is amazing with all the options it gives you. If you would like some examples just shot me an email with a file and I can throw some in it for you. 

[Thee Rickster ™]

Thee Rickster ™, you have a lot of control on how you cut shapes like this. Area roughing toolpath is still an option if you don't like the Opti path. Or you can set the retract in the Opti path so it acts more like the old path. Personally I think the algorithm is amazing with all the options it gives you. If you would like some examples just shot me an email with a file and I can throw some in it for you. 

Remember i cut graphite, peel mill is unnecessary and would turn it off if i could

 

Area roughing does not do the outside of the component efficiently

 

I suppose i could do two paths, limit the opticor to do the outside and

area rough for the inside.

 

either way

Email is not an option, large file size

I could share desktop and a phone call, if that works for you?

 

thanks Ben

[VAMSI KRISHNA]

hi any one explain me about the computational error in dynamic optirough toolpath

 

[BSmith23]

24 minutes ago, VAMSI KRISHNA said:

hi any one explain me about the computational error in dynamic optirough toolpath

 

Usually, when I run into this issue, it's because I didn't set my Minimum Z Depth appropriately on the Steep/Shallow page.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Brent

[JoshC]

28 minutes ago, BSmith23 said:

Usually, when I run into this issue, it's because I didn't set my Minimum Z Depth appropriately on the Steep/Shallow page.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Brent

every time i see this its when i miss something, normally like i have my plane to front but my containment was created in top, a issue with planes could cause this. or like Bsmith mentioned steep shallow settings i have had cause this problem. or depth cuts set to 0, etc. 

if you check your settings i bet somethings not set properly.