2D Dynamic Contour Entry Motion

[Spotterhphc]

Has anyone noticed that in the "Dynamic Contour" toolpath there is no option for "entry motion"? This feature is in " Dynamic Mill" but not in contour. When i go to use it for finishing both floors and walls after Opti Rough has gone through, it is helical entering .26 above the stock. I've played with "inc /abs depths" but can't get it. Is there a reason for this? 

 

Thanks in advance

[nickbe10]

37 minutes ago, Spotterhphc said:

Is there a reason for this? 

Dynamic Toolpaths are generally considered roughing toolpaths. I generally use Dynamic Contour for roughing out Bores or Holes, especially in hard metals as it will give a true spiral path with only one entry and exit.

I get the same thing with the helical entry often when I first set up the toolpath and control it via the Contour Wall tab in the tree, Stock on Walls is the most useful adjustment for me. I can make the helical entry go away and drop into my hole with appropriate clearance, entry is then an angled slope into the cut.

There is no advantage to using it as a finish toolpath, for reasons you have discovered already.

Just use standard contour and calculate your federate using a chip thinning calculator. I just have set finishing speeds and feeds for different materials and machines set up in my tool libraries.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Spotterhphc said:

Has anyone noticed that in the "Dynamic Contour" toolpath there is no option for "entry motion"? This feature is in " Dynamic Mill" but not in contour. When i go to use it for finishing both floors and walls after Opti Rough has gone through, it is helical entering .26 above the stock. I've played with "inc /abs depths" but can't get it. Is there a reason for this? 

 

Thanks in advance

You are trying to use it in a way that it's not really designed to be used for at this point anyway

This toolpath supposes that the user will be going into an already cut area. It's more a semi-roughing path with finishing abilities...

That's what there are setting akin to those in Contour remachining

 

[Spotterhphc]

I tried messing with the "Contour Wall" tab and the "Stock thickness" but didn't have any luck. 

 

There can be an advantage though. It can be up to three toolpaths in one.  Generally, one to rough, one to finish floors up to the walls and one to finish walls. Pocket will do all those but who wants "pocket" anymore? 

This instance it's just 6061 aluminum and milling .400 deep pockets. I use an endmill  with a wiper on one flute so i can finish floors at speed around 200ipm with near Ra 16 finishes. So what I have been doing is make a Dynamic Mill path but stay away from the walls .01-.02 but have a depth cut finish pass of .002-.005 so the floors are finished in one path. The problem then comes in where i have to create a second path to finish the walls. I thought "Dynamic Contour" was the solution? Another toolpath is that much more clicking.  

I saw it as the new "Pocket" toolpath since it has a "finising" tab in the tree but again it does'nt allow you to control the entry motion like "dynamic mill" or "pocket"  Old school pocket gives you all the control you need its just conventional is all.

What do you think?

 

 

[JoshC]

22 minutes ago, Spotterhphc said:

I tried messing with the "Contour Wall" tab and the "Stock thickness" but didn't have any luck. 

 

There can be an advantage though. It can be up to three toolpaths in one.  Generally, one to rough, one to finish floors up to the walls and one to finish walls. Pocket will do all those but who wants "pocket" anymore? 

This instance it's just 6061 aluminum and milling .400 deep pockets. I use an endmill  with a wiper on one flute so i can finish floors at speed around 200ipm with near Ra 16 finishes. So what I have been doing is make a Dynamic Mill path but stay away from the walls .01-.02 but have a depth cut finish pass of .002-.005 so the floors are finished in one path. The problem then comes in where i have to create a second path to finish the walls. I thought "Dynamic Contour" was the solution? Another toolpath is that much more clicking.  

I saw it as the new "Pocket" toolpath since it has a "finising" tab in the tree but again it does'nt allow you to control the entry motion like "dynamic mill" or "pocket"  Old school pocket gives you all the control you need its just conventional is all.

What do you think?

 

 

Dynamic Milling, allows for the most powerful Toolpath chaining, supporting Machining regions, avoidance, air and other useful chaining features. Dynamic contour however is very limited where it only lets you pick a chain and then you tell the toolpath how much stock the chain has on it with the Stock thickness setting. So it not really designed for Pocket milling even though its possible to do a lot of cool stuff the wrong way and still get good results since with a pocket you might have more stock on one wall than on another. Normally i only use dynamic contour when i have the same amount of material on the entire chain, which for me is sometimes on like a wall of a forging or a casting. 

 

For most applications i use Dynamic mill because either my part does not have the same amount of stock on all walls or i want to do a pocket and then for finishing i apply a second toolpath with finish settings. Yes, its 2 toolpaths instead of just 1 but i get the correct results without having to lie to the toolpath or the stock thickness setting. 

 

Here is something else to consider, lets say we are making a round part, a simple Circle, but we are cutting that circle out of a rectangular stock. Using a Dynamic contour you would have to make the stock thickness very large to get it to cut from the rectangle without overloading the cutter and even then you will get lots of air cuts. whereas doing this task with a dynamic mill is ultra simple since all we need to do is pick a machining region as the stock and then avoid the circle and our results will be very efficient with no air cuts once so ever. 

I hope these explanations help. 

[Spotterhphc]

Yes! 

All replies have been very helpful. Thank you for all the input. It seem to be a redundant path at this stage then unless you want to pick out corners. Not a good floor finisher. Ok, ill just stick to the old way. 

Thanlk you all very much.

This forum rocks!