Z Level rough with multipule rough tools

[mbi]

I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions when it comes to roughing large time consuming profiles such as mold surfaces. I use "Z level rough" and "multiple roughing tools" most of the time. As you probably already know, FeatureCam starts with the larger tool and works down to the smaller tool. FeatureCam seems to produce a lot of unnecessary passes within this strategy which in turn wastes time. Anyone have any ideas on how to cut down on some of the wasted time?

[Janos]

I did a graphite trode a while back aprox. 10"x5" 2" thick lots of drafted sides and fins. On a boss part I will sometimes use parallel with a 1" index mill, makes quick work of extra material. It will remove a ton of material in a hurry without killing tooling. I never use the 1,2,3 section. I rough out a cavity with z level leaving .050 then a series of finishing with line tolerance around .001-.005. Then shine it up with the finer settings.

What I mean is I do a single rough hit then only select certain surfaces to do a semi-finish with more aggressive feedrate and stepover. For me it is easier to program doing it this way. Because once you get a certain strategy to how your going to do it, all you have to do is copy and paste. Then turn the same semi-finish into a finish. This works well and doesn't cut a bunch of air.

[blajos14]

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