CamBam

[ckjk616]

New to CamBam, I'm beginning to catch on, but I have a few questions. I've been setting a cut width for inside cuts, and see that it starts toward the inside and works its way out to the final dimension. These cuts have been perfect. Doing outside cuts, it starts at the final dimension, then works its way out. Can I reverse this? On inside cuts, I wind up with a good clean cut as the cutter is taking very little off at the end, giving me a "finish cut". That's what I'm looking for on the outside cut.

Second, my outside cut involved a circle with a rectangular cutout on its perimeter. The router makes the squared turn into the cutout, but doesn't reach the end of the first square corner. I expect a rounded corner, but the cutter never gets that far. Shouldn't the cutter hit the second line of the square, then turn to the next perpendicular side, then reach the third side and do the same? What it's doing is approaching the first inside turn, but veering off to the second. Where am I going wrong?

Finally, is there any good documentation I can download. The different online tutorials are clearly lacking. I see that new documentation is on the way, but until it's available, I'll settle for the old. Thanks.

Regards,

Jeff

[CarveOne]

New to CamBam, I'm beginning to catch on, but I have a few questions. I've been setting a cut width for inside cuts, and see that it starts toward the inside and works its way out to the final dimension. These cuts have been perfect. Doing outside cuts, it starts at the final dimension, then works its way out. Can I reverse this? On inside cuts, I wind up with a good clean cut as the cutter is taking very little off at the end, giving me a "finish cut". That's what I'm looking for on the outside cut.

Second, my outside cut involved a circle with a rectangular cutout on its perimeter. The router makes the squared turn into the cutout, but doesn't reach the end of the first square corner. I expect a rounded corner, but the cutter never gets that far. Shouldn't the cutter hit the second line of the square, then turn to the next perpendicular side, then reach the third side and do the same? What it's doing is approaching the first inside turn, but veering off to the second. Where am I going wrong?

Finally, is there any good documentation I can download. The different online tutorials are clearly lacking. I see that new documentation is on the way, but until it's available, I'll settle for the old. Thanks.

Regards,

Jeff

On both inside and on outside cuts you can do a second profile cut that is a "cleanup" cut. If you want to do something like have a letter O or A that is much wider than your bit diameter you can define the middle of the O as an "island" inside of a larger round pocket. Instructions are on the CamBam site for that operation. It involves defining the middle of the O as an island, the outside of the O as a pocket. Then you define the outside of the O as an inside profile and the island as an outside profile. What will happen is that you cut a pocket that stops at the island boundary, then do two cleanup profiles that eliminate the ends of the tool paths with a light cut. Clear as mud yet?

The free beta has some issues and is not upgraded, I gave up on it, but the Pro version lets you use it 40 times before it expires. No time limit otherwise. The Pro version has all of the current features and gets updated. When/if you pay for it you get an email that will eliminate the trial counts. I'm still figuring the Pro version out.

There is a CamBam forum on CNC Zone where you may get some better answers.

CarveOne

[ckjk616]

Thanks for your response. I read the pocketing and island tutorial more closely and played with offsets and inside pockets. I only ran them on my desktop, and the pocketing seemed OK, but in the process, I discovered "roughing clearance" under "stepover". Running a 1/4" endmill, I set the cut width to .3, then left a roughing clearance of anything up to .05. It did the job, but then I checked into profiling and there was the roughing clearance again. Tried it, and it seemed to do the exact same thing, leaving that finishing cut I wanted. Do you see a difference between the two?
The roughing clearance will definitely help, but I still wonder why, on the outside cut, the router worked from the cutting line outward. Would milling direction have anything to do with it? I do want to run against the direction of the router rotation. Then what's with that veering off on those inside corners. I tried it several times, the table ran smoothly, and it happened each time.

I'll try running simpler samples on the machine to see what happens. If you have any ideas, let me know. Otherwise, thanks for shedding more light on the problems.

Regards,

Jeff

[CarveOne]

Thanks for your response. I read the pocketing and island tutorial more closely and played with offsets and inside pockets. I only ran them on my desktop, and the pocketing seemed OK, but in the process, I discovered "roughing clearance" under "stepover". Running a 1/4" endmill, I set the cut width to .3, then left a roughing clearance of anything up to .05. It did the job, but then I checked into profiling and there was the roughing clearance again. Tried it, and it seemed to do the exact same thing, leaving that finishing cut I wanted. Do you see a difference between the two?
The roughing clearance will definitely help, but I still wonder why, on the outside cut, the router worked from the cutting line outward. Would milling direction have anything to do with it? I do want to run against the direction of the router rotation. Then what's with that veering off on those inside corners. I tried it several times, the table ran smoothly, and it happened each time.

I'll try running simpler samples on the machine to see what happens. If you have any ideas, let me know. Otherwise, thanks for shedding more light on the problems.

Regards,

Jeff

The inside versus outside cut is just cutting on one side of a polyline or the other side. The software just compensates for the cutter radius. Yes, cutting direction does matter, but you can't always control which way the wood grain runs.

10bulls can explain things much better than I can. I'm a rank beginner with CAM software. I don't know enough yet to be of help with the inside corner problem.

CarveOne

[10bulls]

Hi Jeff,

I am a bit confused why the outside toolpath should be going from the cut line outwards. As you expect, it should do the reverse, with the final cut along the drawing line.

Ah, just reading your other problem about the missing rectangle corner... It sounds like the shape may not be marked as closed. Even if a shape looks closed, CamBam needs to know that it should be treated as a closed shape.
(The easiest way to do this is to select the shape, then look at the Closed property in the property grid and change it is neccesary).
This may also explain the outside toolpath problem.

Is it possible to upload a .cb file and I will investigate?
If you have problems attaching files, you can also email file to me at:
10bulls at gmail dot com.