So I'm doing 3d contouring to make sloped pockets. I'm running into an isuse. The cut which featurecam is asking to take is a bit steep for my liking. I know with 2D there is an option Rough Pass Z increment or Finish Pass Z Increment. Is there an equivalent for 3d contouring so the half inch endmill doesn't cut half an inch down in one pass?

there should be a z-increment or a stepover. what process you are using?

I'm using Z level. I see Z increment however it seems like that increments the step over that take and not the depth of cut. Th endmill is still doing cuts of 2x the diameter their just very small. If possible I'd want to just make it to step down in the Z rather than do the small step overs in the Y direction.

in z-level roughing, the z increment sets the depth of each "level" while the rough pass stepover sets the percentage of the tools diameter it moves over at each level. hope you get this to work for you. let me know if i made it clear as mud!

I think I vaguely understand what you mean by the levels but I'm a little lost. I think it's also different from me. I'm doing a finishing pass and I want to do multiple passes, (Finishing Z Level) so I'm using the ball endmill to step down and i essentially want to do an arc down of small increments instead of cutting down a large total.

now i am getting you. to do multiple finish passes, you have two choices. 1st- you set your scallop height like a stepover in z and you divide the leave allowance up to how ever many passes you want to make. if your rough pass leave allowance is .050 and you want 2 passes, then set your finish pass leave allowance to .025. then you make 2 z-level finsh passes, the second one with zero leave allowance. the second way is almost the same except you don't use scallop height but use z-increment and the same leave allowance procedure i set up above. sure hope this gets you going. once you do one it really is easy. let me know if i need to break it down somemore.

Thanks a lot. I understand perfectly and got it working.

cool-