Pocket with Island - Edgecam V10

[Mike Mattera]

I would appreciate some guidance on this type of part. Cutting inside the brown boundry, to face off the (next) inside boundry, leaving the innermost boundry standing.

Essentially to cut a pocket with an island standing.

It looks like it should be so simple.

I would like to see it done with a profiling cut. To take the a pass around the outside until it gets to the island and then collapse on the left and then collapse on the right.

Rough is not roughing at all. Even with Flats turned on.

I'm just not getting anything like that.

Also: How do I put a toolpath display on a different level. i.e. Tool 1 Rough on one level. Tool 1 Profile on another level.

file location:
http://www.tipsformfg.com/bin/junk/Trophy1B.ppf

Any and all help is appreciated

Thanks,

Mike Mattera

[Mike Mattera]

Oops! Typo in the link. I fixed it.

Thanks Lakeside

Mike Mattera

[cadcamjohn]

Mike, I hope this helps.

In the approach tab of the roughing dialog box change the Maximum Plunge Depth from "0.0" to " " . Edgecam sees a diference between zero and nothing this applies to lots of edgecam dialog boxes.


For adding the toolpath to a different layer.

Copy your toolchange to a position between the roughing and finishing. Go to the more tab of the milling cutter dialog box and change the name of the layer. This will result in some extra code generated but should not involve any movement as long as you have not forced any axis tokens in the code generator.

All the best

John

[Mike Mattera]

Hi John,

Good advise on the tool path display. I appreciate it. As for the pocket, there is some improvement, but it's still not what I'm looking for.

It seems that there's no control over cutting "Inside-Out" or "Outside-In". It only cuts from the inside-out.

Very dissappointing.

Mike Mattera

[cadcamjohn]

Mike,
You are right you can not choose inside-out or outside-in stategies while roughing any more in EC.

You could add a button to the toolbar from the "Superseded Cycles" Section called Areaclear. This was used instead of roughing up until version 9 I think. This does have the option of inside-out or outside-in. It is not as versatile as the new roughing cycle but it still works well for some things.

There is always a way around things and here is my solution for you using just version 10 buttons.

Regards

John

[ajtomany]

Mike,
Attached is the file you requested. I'm not sure if your professional version will open an educational version file or not. Give it a try.

If it doesn't open, let me know.

Part of the problem you were having is that you didn't specify a depth of cut when atempting to cut the profile. Also, you can control the side the cut is made on through the Profiling dialog or by double clicking your geometry.
As far as the tool paths go, all I can say is that you need to take advantage of the layers. Create the layer you would like and then make sure that particular layer is active when creating tool paths. This is an issue I have had to repeatedly tell my students.

Hope this helps. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask!

Armand