3D surface toolpaths useable as 5 axis paths

[xform precision creations]

Hi. I am new to mastercam and new to the forum and situated down in New Zealand. I have a 5 axis Thermwood 67 and am trying to work out how to rough out a deep steep sided part in 5 axis. You can only go so deep when approaching from the top before the head hits the part. I want to be able to tilt the tool and rough out the sides of the part. I understand that all the 3D tool paths are avalable in 5 axis but am unsure of how to do this.

I guess I want use a surface rough operation with the tool referenced to an angled plane and for the tool path to regonise the stock boundary so that it doesn't cut air for any length of time.

Thank you. Hopefully someone can help me out.

I am running Mill 9.1 sp2 Level 3

[crazy^millman]

Well this is acutally done very easy like espically on a Thermwood. I will go into a multi face part and I will create a c-plane using the face I want to machine as that control. The trick is that Mastercam makes every view system view so it has been suggested to copy planes to be able to name them. I have found it best to create levels with the name of the cplane I am usign and go from there. The trick to all 3d toolpaths as a 5 axis toolpath is to keep the X in the right direction while keeping Z going in the right direction also. I also use boundaries as my toolpath controls to really tweak the toolpaths the way I want. All toolpaths you use in 3de are used in 5 axis or in all honesty think of it as just turing the head to a position to be in directino you really want to be in for the most effective machining with that tool.

 

Now here come 5th axis that is a whole different can of worms but still very good with Mastercam. All 5th axis toolpaths have many controls the trick is to understand what they all mean and that can be done in a book or or can be done trial and error. I am from the school of hard knocks myself os give you the best adivce i can for what I have learned. 5 axis swarf uses 2 chains to control the tool as it is cuttign the chains of the part. This works real good with sync points as controls as well as the chains themself. I would creat like 10 points on the top chain and then 10 on the bottom then tell the toolpath to sync and then use points. I also like to use this toolpath with depth of cuts. 5 axis curve does a good job for profiling a 5 axis cut but then using a surface, lines or other things as the toolpath control. The drill 5th axis is also a very powerful tool and works best I have found with lines and arc with points also as controls. 5 axis flowine is really good for doing the whole outside surface of a curve part. It works in many ways just like other 5 axis toolpaths but you can get very trick with what you want to do with this toolpath. Let take for instance cutting a part from 3 o'clock to 9 o'clock but your tool might hit a wall or something you can create a line at 30 degree from that start point then at 45 from the end point and use that as you axis control then your toolpath will not go to 90 to -90 to cut the part. If you were doing the indes of a tall part then you could create as many lines as axis control that you want to guide the head the way you want. I did a 17" tall part in our Thermwood and was able to do faces 14" tall with no problem using over 20 axis control line. Then the last is 5 axis multi surface. It also works just like the other toolpaths and as with anything just take practice.

 

Don't be affraid to try things. Don't be affirad to make mistakes. Don't be affraid to aks us question and know this we have all been there done that. Good luck and I hope that helps.

[Jimmy Wakeford from Barefoot CNC]

+1 Ron (insert thumbs up icon here)

 

Howard, as Ron said dont be fraid to try stuff out. If you run into something you cant figure out post it on ftp and we'll take a look at it.

[mayday]

Is the ( RON-co ) book on Mastercam in stores yet? I thinks I could use one of those

[wildcat99]

Welcome to Mastercam and the forum.

For roughing I would use several Surface Finish toolpaths. Put different values in the stock to leave box for each depending on what DOC you can take. For example, leave 1-in for the first path, .75-in for the second, etc. The tool will follow the shape of the part but stay off the final surface by the stock to leave value.

Also, set the stepover to what you want and increase the tolerance from .001 to say .005 to keep filesize down.

Surface Rough assumes you have a square block for stock and gets kind of goofy especially on an angled plane.

quote:

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use boundaries as my toolpath controls to really tweak the toolpaths the way I want

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+1 to Millman. Once you define the angled plane, draw the boundary you want on that plane. You will still cut air, but you can minimize it by tightening down your boundary.

quote:

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If you run into something you cant figure out post it on ftp and we'll take a look at it

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+1 to Jimmy. For specific help, put your part on the FTP and see how someone else would cut it. HTH

[crazy^millman]

Wildcat you problay know this but you can use round boundaries, crazy Millman boundaries, or just about any shape that a tool will fit in to for surface rough pocket and yes that is in any c-plane or t-plane.

 

As for you May^day was wondering when that joke was a coming my friend. In Florida they use to have the guys on the Radio called RON & RON and that was the stanind joke for a while. MY twin brother is Named Donald s owe were always called Ronald Mc Donald growing up. My last name is Branch so my favorite joke to a person is what I was going to name my kids OAK, MAPLE, SPRUCE and that one I will leave for people to figure out.

[xform precision creations]

Thankyou for the advice. I will try it out and see what happens. I thought that I would use some 3d tool paths referenced to angled planes to remove excess stock leaving a small amount of material on the surfaces and then use a 5 axis flowline or multi surf to finish machine. I presume this is the correct approach.

[crazy^millman]

Yes that should do what you want or you can use the 5 axis toolpaths as a roughing toolpaths using a large step over leaving .01 for the finish pass if material removal is not to excesive. Good Luck and have fun.

[xform precision creations]

I have set up a cplane 30degrees off vertical and created a rough parrallel toolpath to this plane for machining the curved side of the part. It works fine however, because the stock starts off as a square block sitting on the machine table, when I create the rough path relative to the 30degree plane it starts its cuts from where it first sees the surfaces and not from the corner of the stock, therefore there is a large triangle of stock missed. How do I remove this stock? Can I tell it to start cutting from the corner of the stock rather than where it first sees the surfaces to machine?

It would appear that it doesn't regonise the stock. Note that I setup the jobsetup using bounding box with the cplane orriented to top as it would be with the stock positioned on the table ready to be machined.

[crazy^millman]

This is where your dpth controls coem in you just choose the high point as your high and the lowest you want to go as your bottom but I like surface rough pocket better gives more control here than parrelle does just my opinion though.

 

 

[xform precision creations]

I played around with the depth controls and got it working well. Because it maintians the shape of the tool path within the boundry all the way out to the highest depth, it spends a bit of time cutting air initially but I guess you can't overcome this without having a seperate toolpath first with a smaller boundry.

Thanks

[crazy^millman]

Well we have 7 machines here and they are making money runnign if it cuts air for a little while yeah it suck but atleast it is running and I didnt have t ospend 5 hours cutting out 30 minutes worth of air time. I would also look at your acceleratino macros as well as your M48 I dotn use M48 most fo the time and if I do I have set up our post to not use it for toolchange cycels on the Thermwood that alone can save upwards of 1 minute. Well good luck and post any question we will try to help any way we can.