"Try telling the Rest cut to leave .001 more stock." " I've also tried increasing the stock to leave with a looser cut tolerance for the rest mill tool path and have mixed results with that." Up to .002. already. Still gives me grief.

Yes stock model is in use as it's actually part of the tutorial. Perhaps whats taking place happens because the step down / step up and radial DOC are different between the 2 tools / ops. The rest path sees the remaining stock on the walls and decides it needs to clean up / refine these areas. IMO It should be staying out of these areas that the previous tool path could reach as the stock to leave and tolerance are the same.

How do you stop Opti rest from needlessly re cutting areas that have already been machined? I'm going through a Mill level 3 tutorial and the rest mill tool keeps cutting the same walls as the previous tool did. I know I could create boundaries and make multiple ops but it defeats the purpose. I've also tried increasing the stock to leave with a looser cut tolerance for the rest mill tool path and have mixed results with that. Added. I'm also getting quite a few cuts that are conventional. What's up with that?

Bump.

Off topic but same subject. Anybody know of any technical data related to Plunge speeds and feeds, ramp angles and such. I've been using helix bore, 2d ramp, and The HST opti paths quite a bit recently and and have been guessing at the values. So far so good but I'd like to optimize these parameters and get some real theory on paper.

"that nice but there is a 2 inch square boss sitting at the top of the intersection of the 2 tubes. it get dicey" Heh, fine time to bring that up.

Machinist Toolbox. Light weight software, easy on the wallet.

Same machines, different tool paths. IMO, it's has to be how the machine is reacting to the tool path. The cutter can flex with adaptive style tool paths, small scallops ensue. The worst condition I've seen with this on a beat up, sloppy Haas is about .0015 dig. The floors still come out relatively flat, just not where I want them. Come to think of it, this worn out machine will do this with any aggressive tool path. The material may also be curling up throughout the roughing routine as well. 45% radial engagement is a big chunk. ???.004 ??? Something else is at work here. Although I've never had a problem with the tool path actually being wavy, save the tool path as geometry in back plot and measure some depths. "I would never use a dynamic path to finish a floor.. I'd rough with the dynamic then do a finish pass on the floors and walls" I agree. It's a roughing routine. Spring the part after roughing and re-cut anything critical.

http://www.emastercam.com/board/index.php?showtopic=71444&st=20 Flowline or SF Contour.

Suggestions: Try changing your output to .0004 places. Try the hst spiral, no projections. Try the arc filter. Try SF Blend with the spiral option enabled.

Multiple machining regions dialog box. Is there a way to have this dialog box appear right after selecting a tool path type? Currently, I select the tool path, the chain, close the standard chaining dialog box, then the Multiple machining regions dialog box appears, allowing me to reselect the chains for machine and avoidance regions. This gets annoying.

.007 step over with a .75 ball should produce a micro of 17.8 RMS. with no discernible scallop height. Mighty nice IMO. (.008 =21.0 RMS, .009 =26. RMS) In your tool path, change your cutting method to one way, climb cutting. Better finish. Arc filter settings: Total tolerance = .001 and enable arcs in XY XZ YZ. This will take you from 1668.3K to 770.5K tool path size.

"Yeah our toolpaths suck, but not if you rotate it and run it again". About 4 minutes into this video..... In defense of this technique, it does in one op what might take 4 or more separate ops using different tool paths. It falls into the get er done category and depending on the terrain, can produce some nice looking surfaces.

LOL, I could have easily thrown that out there as well. I've done that in the past but i refrain from showing that to the guys at work becuase they would use it frequently and not learn to tweak the proper tool paths. BTW, that's an option in HSMWorks, to repeat with parallel passes in the same op, 90. deg to the 1st angle choosen.

Jay, no negative implications at all. That came across the wrong way. This particular thread has been great. Your experience, facts and opinions are always respected in my book. I'll balance my tool path selections somewhere between get er done, and sweet looking. If it looks like its stabbing or kind of shabby, I'll try something different.

Not here to argue about it but old school SF contour can start at the bottom and move up, it also can come completely off the part between Z levels, which is nice for roughing. I haven't been able to make waterline do either of those. Is it even possible? Perhaps I'm missing something. So SF Contour is my preference. It can be agreed that both styles have their strengths and weaknesses. Raster... WTF, crappy code relative to Parallel. Example: http://www.emasterca...33276&hl=raster Not much has changed. I've tried it on several parts since then with mixed results. Again, perhaps I'm missing something. Old or new scallop paths, can't stand 'em. All the sharp moves are anything but HSM, even with the rounding turned on it's a mess. I do agree about having more control. Too bad they haven't combined the best of both tool paths and gave you just one awesome tool path of that type. A good example of directional controls used in combination with dummy drive surfaces. http://www.emasterca...olidays +thanks Ninja, how have you not maxed out your uploads yet?

Direction control with almost everything. On rare occasions, tangential line length. The dummy drive surfaces are to help with the first agressive cut or to influence the shape of the toolpath. I wish the old school tool paths had the entry / exit capabilities of the HST paths. IE: 3d arc entry.

I'll keep an eye out for it. Thanks.

"Right Click/Edit Common parameters/Planes and apply Mirrored WCS" OK, ill try that. Sounds simple enough. This is getting intriguing. Can I use edit common parameters and select any WCS, assuming the same geometry lies in that plane? Like on a tombstone where you have the same part on multiple faces, all in the exact same spot relative to C/L of rot?

OK, so I have this part where the top and bottom are mirrored. Is there a way to start a new toolpath group, establish the WCS for the bottom, copy ops from the top and not have to modify any settings yet pick up the new WCS? In other words, can I change the T/C plane in that op? X6 HLE.

" What benefits would you say back plot has over verify?" In general, it offers up a different perspective for observing your work. For one, you can see the cutter path relative to you geometry, literally look at it moving along the chain, or staying off it. See the leads ins. See the coordinates. Analyze saved back plot geometry. Drive saved geometry as a tool path. See the rapid moves. See whether or not you selected the correct hole for a certain drill size. Verify shows none of this, you see a tool either cutting a chunk or moving through air and thats it. I look for gouges, verify against a finished solid or a stl. I'll section my verify for clarity, and I'll measure results with the cut. I use both tools about the same amount one will catch something that the other misses. FYI. 2/3 of the guys in my shop don't use verify and can't set it up properly, especially with round stock. They were shown the basics of back plot and it works fine for most of the 2d work. I'm stuck there right? Not necessarily. Use depth limits to stay off the floor, and trim from the right or left. When you use depth limits though, the tool path shape can change vs trimming from the top view.

Using back plot to same geometry is very cool. When you run back plot, theres an icon in the second row from the top, far right, that looks like a floppy disk. Run the back plot and when it finishes, select that icon. A message will appear asking you what level you would like to save it to. Pick a level number, hit the green check mark and done. I usually save it with out the rapid moves turned on. Now you can analyze the geometry, copy it or do what ever you like. In your case, I would select the geometry that comes closest to where you would like to trim your tool path, change the color of that geometry, and delete the rest. Tons of possibilities here. The boundary chains I spoke about will influence the general shape of the tool path and offers up more variations for trimming. "Is there any way to trim this same path from another plane's view? " Yes, set the T/C plane to front or right or whatever plane suits your needs. Create your trim boundary and be sure to be in that plane when you use the trim function. Some people will think this is too much work but it really only takes a few minutes and offers a level of control that otherwise would not be possible.

OK. So not knowing SolidWorks will get you about 45% there. If all you've ever used for geometry and model creation is MC, SW is going to seem like greek at first. After a few weeks, you'll have the basics down. Quite a few web sites have excellent free tutorials for SW. The hard part is going to be letting go of the way you draw in mastercam. The tool paths all perform the same way, and for the most part look the same in the menu's. This truly is an excellent alternative if your not machining in a 5 axis realm. No doubt thats probably in the pipline.

That works well and is how I prefer to do it. Also note that you can get some good feeds going if you apply radial chip thinning on a parallel style tool path.. I also create dummy drive surfaces around the perimeter when needed to stop that first pass from being to aggressive or force a tangent entry.

I gave up after 58 minutes. Too bad the damn escape key doesn't work. When times crunch time like this take place, I often like to recheck my settings to see if I screwed something up. Taskman to the rescue. I'm guessing here as well but perhaps joining some of those broken arcs, which would reduce the number of entities, may improve the crunch time some.