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Surface High Speed (Area Roughing) not cutting to bottom


saltedfish
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I'm running Mastercam 2017 build 19.0.15109.0

 

I'm having an issue with the Surface High Speed (Area Roughing) tool. As you can see from the attached picture, it's not cutting all the way to the bottom of the pocket. This is a known problem in my shop here, and we often have to go in with a secondary operation to clean up the bottom. The distance doesn't seem to be related to any of the options in the toolpath window, so I'm confused why Mastercam would just randomly opt to not finish the bottom of the pocket.

 

Edit: I tried the Dynamic Optirough and had the same issue, and verified that the Z depths include the full depth of the pocket, so neither of those helped. The "leave material" is set to 0, as well.

 

Is there a way to force this toolpath to go all the way to the bottom? Is there an alternative that people have used in the past to rough out a pocket before going in for some finish passes? This is a mold cavity, so dimensions are important here and I don't want to be too aggressive.

 

Thanks in advance!

halp.png

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I have seen this happen for a couple of different reasons. Mostly settings that might be hard to understand.

 

1. Skip pockets smaller than. (This is mentioned above.)  This setting takes into account stock so you have to be careful with that.

 

2. Helix Radii. It's important to note that this is radial and does not include half the tool size. Typing in .250" with a .500" tool will generate a hole in the part 1.00" in diameter.

 

3. Steep/Shallow settings.

 

4. Not using Stepup. This is the setting that gets me almost every time I have this problem. Stepdown looks down until it violates a floor, then it deletes that last step. Meaning if you're within .950" of the floor and step down is set to 1" it will not cut the last section because it's less then the stepdown value. The best way I have found to negate this is to turn on stepup and set it to the same value as the stepdown, meaning it will look both up and down for material getting rid of that last bit of material.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Caleb 

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Sorry, all of this info was for Opti-Rough I thought this was what you were using. I have never used Area Roughing. Looking at the 'Help' parameters page it looks like the "Add Cuts" button just below stepdown does something similar to what I was describing above. Like I said though, I don't really know this toolpath.

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Really appreciating the responses here, thank you all so far.

 

@Manofwar: I switched the toolpath type from Area Rough to Optirough so that I could explore the settings you're talking about. I found the Step Up option you were referring to, enabled it, and set it to 10% (the same value as the Step Down). However, I'm still seeing the same behavior as I was in Area Rough (see picture). I'm also not sure why the toolpath is all... wonky like that. Z Depths encompasses the entire depth of the pocket, Skip Pockets is set to 0, 

 

@The Chipmaker: Could you reupload those pictures at a higher resolution? I can't make out the text :(

 

Mystery solved folks: It's a combination of me forgetting the scale of the view and the Step Up. I had .005" on the floor, and when I removed that but had the Step Up enabled as @Manofwar suggested, the toolpath went all the way to the bottom. I just didn't realize the enormous looking gap was just the stock remaining on the floor. Oops. Thanks everyone for their help.

 

Follow up question: what are the pros and cons of optirough vs area rough? Is there any reason to use one over the other?

halp2.png

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