Seal groove programming

[TERRYH]

Have been doing a seal groove around a foam mold, and it is not flat which requires using live 5 axis programs to do it. I learned how to do the programs from our other guy here who learned I believe from someone on here, and to me it seems like a very  hard way to do it and takes a lot of time, where it is driven by  creating wire frame to drive the curves to tell it where to follow and lines to control tool tilt. I did all flat areas of it first being a set angle, trying to limit the amount of true live 5 programming needed. Does someone know of a easier way to do it, or can you point me in right the direction to go see how to do it. Creating the curves for the tool to follow is easy enough, its the creation of the lines that controls tool tilt that takes time and needs tweaked to get it close.

[crazy^millman]

Why not Swarf it? Nothing should need to be created. Can you strip out just that section and post up a surface model of it and I am sure someone will be glad to point you in the right direction.

[TERRYH]

Yea that should not be an issue if I knew how and where to post something like that. Never did it before.

 

 

[crazy^millman]

25 minutes ago, TERRYH said:

Yea that should not be an issue if I knew how and where to post something like that. Never did it before.

 

 

You can email me and I will be glad to provide a dropbox link to others with my take on how to so this. 2017 or 2018?

[jlw™]

If the tool holders would clear and you're using a ball mill I'd just 2d project form the top.  That has worked for me on quite a few occasions.

[TERRYH]

the bottom of slot has to be flat per customer data, if it had a radius I could have done it easily. And I got it done using the way I was taught from our other programmer its just so time consuming. and I am using X9 not 2017-2018

[crazy^millman]

Here is a link to the iges file. Emastercam Help

[Colin Gilchrist]

Use Transform Project - Points/Lines. Make sure you select "Normal to Surface". This will easily give you the Tilt Lines.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Colin Gilchrist said:

Use Transform Project - Points/Lines. Make sure you select "Normal to Surface". This will easily give you the Tilt Lines.

Always a good day when you learn something new

[crazy^millman]

Okay I could not get Swarf to do what I wanted. I reverted back to the old Curve 5 Axis and got a working process. Will need to create a curve on the lower edge. I then made one surface out of the multiple surfaces in one area. I then made a swept surface using a line between them and got motion I wanted. That one surface was used as the Normal surface for the Curve 5 Axis. The Lower edge is used for the guide curve. I was thinking you could do this without creating geometry and I could proablay spend more time trying to use something else, but this is not to much extra work. I will send you a break down of step by step in an email so you can do it in X9.

I will be sending this example to Aaron so he can help me understand why Swarf didn't play nice here.

[TERRYH]

Thanks, and yes I enjoy learning everything I can, but this place seems to only want us to use what we know works, and refuses to pay for us to get any kind of official training on this stuff, it has all been OJT and what has been passed along since X4 or before.

 

[crazy^millman]

Here is a video of one section.

5th Axis Seal Groove

[RonC.]

I would like to know how you guy deal with these inside radius and still keep the gasket grove flat

I would think using a end mill it would dig into grove as it try to swing the below radius.. :-)

[crazy^millman]

9 minutes ago, RonC. said:

I would like to know how you guy deal with these inside radius and still keep the gasket grove flat

I would think using a end mill it would dig into grove as it try to swing the below radius.. :-)

You can't something has to give if you want to cut it with a flat endmill. Only other way would be a Right Angle Head with a Key Seat cutter to a point and then try not to slam it into the other wall. the way it is modeled no way I know to cut it normal to the floor and use a flat endmill. With an engraving tool to a sharp point yes I could cut it, but it would take a good amount of time to make that happen.

I went with the do your best to make what we need happen.

[RonC.]

1 minute ago, C^Millman said:

You can't something has to give if you want to cut it with a flat endmill. Only other way would be a Right Angle Head with a Key Seat cutter to a point and then try not to slam it into the other wall. the way it is modeled no way I know to cut it normal to the floor and use a flat endmill. With an engraving tool to a sharp point yes I could cut it, but it would take a good amount of time to make that happen.

Thanks crazymillman for the quick response...

I thought as much... :-)  just glad i'm not miss something that would make my programming life easier.. lol

[crazy^millman]

Just now, RonC. said:

Thanks crazymillman for the quick response...

I thought as much... :-)  just glad i'm not miss something that would make my programming life easier.. lol

I would like to know also since it is technically impossible to cut with a flat endmill. Most times what you can machine is good enough, but we will have to wait and see what Terry says since it is his part.

[crazy^millman]

Going back to your original question about driving the toolpath using Curves and Lines  I have mentioned that process many times over the years and yes can be a lot of work, but gives the programmer the most control IMHO to drive a 5 Axis Toolpath. Kind of what I did in this example, but I cheated and used one surface to control the tool axis verses lines like I have done in other situations where the natural shape of the part didn't allow for the floor to be used. In this case it was a good natural floor shape to use, but needed to be one surface. Where knowing surface creation comes in handy.

[TERRYH]

Correct it cannot be perfectly flat in certain areas, we just try and keep it as close as possible. Our customer allows us to be out in certain areas as it is impossible to get it 100%. They just don't want the entire thing to have a radius, like it would be if we used a ball mill.

[Grievous]

Gotta go home..cannot finish it...but that's how I would do it...

...I split it in 2 for safety...to avoid pole singularities issues .. (dunno what machine kine this guy has)

...btw in case u dont have a 15mm cutter...lol

SEAL_GROOVE.mcam

[crazy^millman]

45 minutes ago, Grievous said:

Gotta go home..cannot finish it...but that's how I would do it...

...I split it in 2 for safety...to avoid pole singularities issues .. (dunno what machine kine this guy has)

...btw in case u dont have a 15mm cutter...lol

SEAL_GROOVE.mcam

Nice work sir.

I learned something for your example thanks for sharing that approach.

[huskermcdoogle]

I would have used Grievous's method, or something similar anyway using the MW paths.  Usually this would give you the simple ability to run on the front in the tool axis page, or the edge of the tool which would give you a better, flatter floor finish on the convex surfaces.  For some reason when playing with it in 2018 it won't posture the tool properly to do that.  It does center only.  Not sure why, maybe Aaron can chime in on that.

If allowed, I would also use a corner radius endmill to cut this, probably a .005"-.01" at a minimum.  Usually seal manufacturers will call for at least a .005" radius in a seal groove corner.  Sharper than that is typically pointless.  Ideally I would use the largest radius the print or the end customer will allow.

[TERRYH]

Will get a little time today to look at the examples provided, thanks for the help guys. I did all the larger flat areas vertical and at appropriate angles first and only did the corners and other radii separate to keep the live 5 programs to a minimal.   

[Aaron Eberhard]

Nice looking path, Grievous!

I emailed this to Ron yesterday in response to his inquiry, but I just now had time to post it for everyone.

I think the big problem here is that the wall surface (that you’re swarfing) isn’t made correctly for what you want to do.  If you look at the surface UVs, you can see that the surface it’s cut from is not normal to the bottom surface:

And I think what you really want is to be normal to the bottom surface, regardless of what the wall is doing anyway.   My guess is you’d need curves at the top and bottom to get the precise control out of swarf that you’re looking for.  Especially swarf milling as that algorithm also balances efficiency, so while this is technically correct for a swarf, it’s not what you really intend to do:

So, with that in mind, I’d propose Parallel to Surfaces (or, you can create curves if you’re the kind of person that likes to create extra geometry).  I colored the surfaces on level 100 to make it easier to select and I didn’t have to isolate it, you know how I hate creating unnecessary geometry 😊  I did have to fix up the normals as they're all over the place:

 I ended up with two separate Parallel toolpaths to do the “left” and “right” sides.  Parallel is set up to be 1 cut, and the on the Cut Pattern > Margins page, I have it using the tool radius.  That’s all I did and I got Ops #4&5.  I did the same thing with a Curve on one edge for Op #6&7, but I didn’t like doing it because it created unnecessary geometry…

I don't think you'd want to do a shape like this all as one toolpath, as the "T" shown above leaves some ambiguity for the the algorithm, so you may not like what it comes up with there. Driving one side at a time made it easy to get exactly what I wanted, and you can then add roughing passes or whatnot.   To make the other side, I simply copied the first toolpath and used the "only" quickmasks to reselect different "parallel to" surfaces.

 

Hope this helps!

SEAL_GROOVE - ACE.zip

[Aaron Eberhard]

12 hours ago, huskermcdoogle said:

For some reason when playing with it in 2018 it won't posture the tool properly to do that.  It does center only.  Not sure why, maybe Aaron can chime in on that.

I haven't had any reports of trouble with this, if'n you get a chance, please send a file over.

[huskermcdoogle]

1 hour ago, Aaron Eberhard - CNC Software said:

I haven't had any reports of trouble with this, if'n you get a chance, please send a file over.

Aaron, I just took Greivous's file and changed to run at front in the tool axis page.  It wouldn't do it.  Maybe I am missing something.  But that's all I changed, and it wouldn't respond.

You're parallel paths do it just fine