This thread is a place where people can ask for improvements to be incorporated in future releases of Hypermill.

This is not a bug fix or problem thread, so please keep those things out of this thread.

Please put only one idea in each post so it is easy for people to respond to your ideas separately.

Also please indicate what version of Hypermill and what release of Hypermill you use and with what CAD.

Cheers
SF

My Hypermill is rel 9.7 of the Expert level code (that is 3D routines only and frames support). I use Hypermill in Autodesk Inventor 2008.

I am going to start this off with a request for a spiral mode to clear a face or clear out a circlar pocket.

Just as an example if you have a round part sticking up in a vice and you need to face it off with an endmill there is no quicker way to do it than with a spiral cut with an infeed starting from the outside. I am aware that this can be programmed with free path milling but it is not as simple as first meets the eye. Clearing the final center is not easy with a spiral that uses path compensation.

It would also be nice to have a spiral round pocket clearing routine. One that could spiral down into the center of the material and then start the spiral to clear all the material until the pocket is cleared.

It would be preferable to have this in the 2D routines like 2D pocket milling and 2D face milling. But I would welcome it in 3D profile finishing and 3D Z level roughing too.

MasterCAM has a nice spiral tool path solution and I think it is time for Hypermill to have it too. There is nothing faster and better on the tool. My perspective is machining titanium. In titanium it is bad to plunge the tool into the material with a full cut. It leaves the flutes cutting for too long and so heats up the cutter to much to the destruction of the carbide.

If you know of an alternate solution to produce this cutter path, please by all means lets hear it.


Cheers
SF

This suggestion is in some ways in the same vain as my previous suggestion. It is never good to plunge a tool right into material like titanium with a full cut. This is true for the very reason that they offer trochoidal path cutting.

In the 3D arbitrary stock roughing routine I would like to see a macro or strategy that no longer has the cutter plunging straight into material. This plunging is ASR's normal mode of operation and it is very hard on the machine tool and the cutter. Please see the picture for an example of what I am talking about. What it should do is ease into the cut with a tangential type of macro. It knows where the stock is so it has the information needed to do this. Please see the green arrow in the pic below pointing to the part of the cutter path that is not desirable.

http://www.coolfall.com/images/arbitrarystockroughingexample.jpg

In this example I have stock modeled as a rectangular block and you can see it is chipping away at the corners first. The tool rapids down in z and then feeds down in z the last little bit. Then it feeds horizontally straight into the stock! Not a good thing to do in harder materials.

What I would like to see the strategy do is limit the angle of contact between the cutter and the tool to a specified angle. See the green arrow pointing to a cutter path I drew in by hand. This would ease into the part and save the cutter the over heating torture.

http://www.coolfall.com/images/arbitrarystockroughingexample2.jpg



Cheers
SF

http://www.coolfall.com/images/hypermilljoblist.jpg

In this screen capture can you see which job is hi-lighted? It is too hard for me to spot. It is actually job # 10, see the very faint outline around the job!

Please make this darker or another color. I am forever visually searching for the hi-lighted job.


Cheers
SF

bump :violin:

EDIT to post #3

In this problem I refer to "plunging" into the material but what I meant to say is in-feeding. No matter what you call it, it is the part of the movement that has the cutter moving in the X-Y plane only. My graphic shows this good enough I think.

Look close and you will notice that it not only does this on the first pass but on the second pass around at the same height as well.

This so needs to be fixed. I am willing to bet that the programmers have never seen my post. "www.babelfish.yahoo.com" Please look at it and reply to my post.

Cheers
Dave

Hi SF,

I am using HyperMill v9.7 with 3D & 5 axis licenses, I am also using HyperCad 2008.1

with reference to your spiral dilemma, if you have the cycles of course, have you tried "3D Equidistant Finishing", this is a versatile cycle that can be used for many applications, it is also easy to use with not much work to create your spiral in to dead center from outside the billet :-
http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/tt263/legless77/equiin.jpg

or indeed inside to out stopping at the edge or pocket wall etc :-
http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/tt263/legless77/equiout.jpg,

the cutter used here was a Ø20mm endmill and I have complete control over the step over, combining this with a 2D pocket cycle to spiral down in the center I could then spiral out taking whatever stepover was needed.

I also do not seem to have the same problem you have of identifying the highlighted cycle.

Hope I haven't missed the point !

Poe77

Regarding the "3D Arbitrary Stock Roughing", I agree totally with this problem, it can in some ways be softened by switching the planar mode to "Rapid In" but that is not always the answer we are looking for, its in all the other cycles so why can we NOT choose our infeed preference in this cycle ? I went to the seminar for HyperMill 2009 and was told there would be a lot of new stuff, one of which was improving the approach and retract of cutters, will this be one of them, we will see, I wont hold my breath !

Poe77

Poe77,

Wow I am impressed! Your post, pics and all are great, thanks. And it is finally nice to have another power user such as yourself here on the forum. Welcome to CNCZone!

I do have the equidistant routine now but I only got it last year and never thought about it for this solution, good idea. The only disadvantage I see to this solution is it needs a special "milling area" defined to fake out the routine because we can't get the 3D cycles to act on "stock models". Not a big deal. I will be giving this a try tomorrow. If they just added this to a 2D cycle that would rock.

As for seeing the highlighted cycle, HyperCad clearly does not have the problem. I am betting my problem stems from Inventor and Open Mind can't do anything about it.



Cheers
Dave

It would be nice to be able to use the woodruff tool type in "3D free path milling" jobs.

Dave

In the new hyperMILL® 2009.1 release:

New paradigm in manufacturing -
Trendsetting Technologies and Novel Functionality

we are able to support T-slot cutters with Freepath Milling.

85894

hyperMILL® 2009.1 (http://www.openmind-tech.com/) for Inventor is anticipated to be released in Q3 of this year. Please take a look here (http://www.openmind-tech.com/en/news/current/current_details/article/latest-release-ihyperimillsupRsup-20091//92/) for more information.

Also, please contact OPEN MIND US for more detailed technical information.

Doug,

Yea, I use the t-slot or endmill in it's place. Really there is no issue except for hyperview.

Thanks for the info, the new Production Mode looks great.


Cheers
SF

Dave

What is the issue with hyperVIEW?

Doug, thanks for asking but there is nothing wrong with hyperview. I was only saying that until we get the woodruff type cutter in "3D free path milling", we have to use the t-slot cutter. And because the t-slot cutter is not a radius cutter like the woodruff, the resultant stock removal shown in hyperview can not show what the cut would look like if you were actually cutting with a woodruff cutter. Unless of course I am missing something! :rainfro:

Cheers

to be able to generate stock models from all types of operations:cheers:

to have in hyperview a way to see stock left (when stock model is off) and to color guoge areas so they are visible

so colored areas for stock and guoging with differnt colors for different tolerances of stock/gouge


you know like vericut:cheers:

to be able to generate stock models from all types of operations:cheers:

Yes, that is one of Hypermill's amazing capabilities. I machine a part from the top and go into hyperview and save the resulting stock. Then I use that as I start to machine from the bottom!!

I mean in 3d arbitry roughing you have a spot to check in the setup tab "generate resulting stock" so it does it automaticlly and would make life easier.

There are many times that you do not want the resulting stock calculated. And it takes time and creates a file (sometimes a large file), so the default is off.

You can certainly select the function and then "save as default" to change the performance of the cycle on your computer.

Stock can be saved with all cycles (from the browser) under right-click > utilities > generate stock model.

It would be nice to be able to use the woodruff tool type in "3D free path milling" jobs.

Hey Dave, would that be using a woodruff in 3D Free Path milling, with correct simulation in hyperview like this ( excuse the shaft cutting but I was rushing :rolleyes: ):-

http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/tt263/legless77/freepathwoodruff.jpg

I have cheated doing this by actually creating the woodruff with geometry and telling hypermill it was an endmill, using free geometry allows you to use a cutter of any shape !

Andy

Nice Job Andy! :wave:

It would be great to have a "comment" type of job step. That way we could name a block of jobs in a clear and organized way. It would not need to have any other function.

This is in HM 2009.1 (hyperCAD) and will be in HM 2009.2 (SolidWorks and Inventor) and is called compound job. It can be used like a header beneath the job list and above a list of related jobs.

In the tool database application on the "NC Tools" tab the field titled "Cutting Material" should be titled "Cutter Material".

Open and closed pocket machining with tool paths that ensure that there are never any full width cuts. I would love to see this kind of functionality in Hypermill. This is a pic if it from the OneCNC web site.

http://www.coolfall.com/images/SPY005/pocket_machining.png

This functionality is in BobCAD, MasterCAM and other top CAM products. Open Mind needs to add it too.

Cheers
SF