Dynamic Contour Entry Method

[Frank Caudillo]

Hi All,

Is it possible to do a plunge entry with dynamic contour? I have some thru pockets that I've pre-drilled an opening for so I can just plunge in with my endmill and start a dynamic path to finish out said pockets. The result I'm getting is a ramped contour down to my geometry and there is no entry method tab for to edit parameters. Even setting all linking parameters to incremental zero will not force it to plunge. Is this just not possible or am I missing something? This is in 2017, by the way. Thanks.

[Leon82]

Set the holes as an air region and use dynamic mill.

[Frank Caudillo]

13 minutes ago, Leon82 said:

Set the holes as an air region and use dynamic mill.

That worked perfectly. Thanks! I keep trying to use Dynamic Contour but I always end up wondering why it's even there anyways.

[Leon82]

No problem.

 

Contour is good if you have a straight line cut so you can take advantage of the micro lift and back feed or if you have equal stock on all sides.

[civiceg]

Just learned about the air regions last week on here. 

[nickbe10]

I can usually get it to behave properly by adjusting the Stock Thickness in the Contour Wall tab. Leave other fields about the previous tool 0.0.

There will be a sweet spot where the ramp will disappear and then you can adjust for you entry hole size.

[F10Brandon]

Dynamic mill (as I understand and use it ) is meant for roughing and the dynamic contour is more of a finishing operation.

[nickbe10]

43 minutes ago, F10Brandon said:

Dynamic mill (as I understand and use it ) is meant for roughing and the dynamic contour is more of a finishing operation.

Dynamic mill is really a roughing toolpath, but the main difference is that it is controlled by a closed boundary. There is nothing to stop you using it as a finish toolpath but your "finish" will be poor in most circumstances.

Dynamic contour is for roughing and finish. It has a Finish tab in the tree, but this just gives you a path similar to an ordinary contour, so you basically get a twofer. The roughing component is especially useful because it will give you a true spiral rough in a hole with only one entry and exit. This is especially useful in hard metals where the majority of your tool wear happens on entry and exit to and from the material.

If you run the dynamic contour on an open chain it will give you a similar toolpath to dynamic mill as long as you put a value in the contour wall tab (see in thread above) for roughing. And then you still get the finish tab option.

I don't usually use the finish tab option, not because it doesn't work, but simply to give more clarity to my program structure: tha is for someone else opening the file.