How to create part?

[metalworkz]

Try drawing it up with all the features included and see if the CAM will produce the needed program. I have level 3 milling but have not tried anything like this yet. You will still probably need to do a tool change(ball nose) for the angled section so if it does not look right (check Z depth changes) you could always do it in another setup and just angle the part to use flat end mills. I'll check back later when I get home from work to see your current status.
Regards,

[john_t_h]

I'm off to bed so I'll have to re-visit this tomorrow.

I was looking for a tutorial/guide on how draw this up. The only ones I found demonstrate 2D drawings only and setting depth of cut.

I have no idea on how to do the blade angle or the chamfer for the propshaft bit.

[wwendorf]

I have a similar part i'm making, at least in regards to the octagonal thing. I'm milling it flat and using a 45 degree slant angle cutter ($40 per cutter) to get the angles on there.

To draw it out into Dolphin, take the dimensions as if you were looking straight down at the piece and just draw the various lines. You have already modeled it in a 3d program, so take your dimensions from that.

As far as the angle in the long piece, I think i'd probably make a fixture to tilt it at whatever the angle needed is, then drop my jog speed down to like 10-15% and manually machine that angle in there. You could program it, but it looks much easier to just manually cut it.

I am using Dolphin Partmaster L3 for my work too.

Hope this helps.

Later,
Wade

[john_t_h]

hmmmm, manually machine it?

kinda defeats the purpose of having CNC doesn't it?

[wwendorf]

If you are doing a one-off part, doing a few of those steps manually is just quicker. You are still using your electronics to make your life easier. You can do as my post suggests and clamp the piece and do about 1 minute worth of key jogging to get the angle that you want on your part, flip it over, and do the same.

If you program an area clear, then you have to worry about positioning it, then setting your x0 and y0 perfectly. If you plan to produce a few of these, but all means program it. There are a few parts that I make that are very simple and it's just quicker to either key jog to make them, or type the coordinates into the ALT-2 window of mach 3. I could program them, but in the time it took to do the setup, I could have the stuff done.

At any rate, it was just a suggestion. By all means do it as you want. The creation of your part will be about a 4 step operation tho.

Wade

[sqatch]

I quickly whipped this up, nothing is scaled or true just for you to look at.

[metalworkz]

Yes, that looks like the part modeled!! Can you explain how the profiles are defined? I was hoping someone would see Johns post that knew how to do this.

[john_t_h]

I quickly whipped this up, nothing is scaled or true just for you to look at.

Yep that looks like the stuff!!

So in the drawing, it needs to have the arc/chamfer of the prop shaft bit defined and then the angle for the blade defined separately to the main drawing?

[sqatch]

I defined the area for the chamfer and arc with contours,then in the cam program I use the Z profile function to create the tool paths. The parameters and tooling can be tweaked, if you double click the operation name listed on the left the fuction will reopen. You can also go back to the cad program and edit profiles and contours, remember to save.

[wwendorf]

Nice job! I hadn't quite figured out the contour machining of Dolphin yet.

Thanks for the post!

Wade