cutting a profile

[bearracecars]

hey guys
I'm new to mastercam. right now i'm just playing with x3 demo version.
i have a piece of rectangle bar that i will be holding at a 13 deg. angle and will be cutting multiple steps.
My question is how do i program it to cut a profile at different heights?

Thanks for the help
bear

[bearracecars]

so i thought that i could just set the material heights to neg. numbers for each cut but that doesn't seem to work. any ideas on how to do this?

thanks
bear

[beege]

I think you can edit the lines/curves so that the Z is the proper depth. Select geometry, translate, move, Zminus... OK.

?

[Matt Berube]

2 ways to do it...

First would be to have a separate operation for each step and specify an absolute cut depth for each step.(this is the noob way)

Second way would be to create the geometry at the correct z height then use relative depth (set to zero) to cut them all in one operation. (This is the way most professionals would prefer IMHO)

In any case your picture shows what I would consider to be a "Front" view. The geometry you chain for the toolpath should be from a "Top" perspective.

[weirdharold]

Thank's for that tip, Matt. I had played with this with the "Noob" method you described. Took me a few minutes to figure out the other, & see it is easier & faster once you understand the concept.

Harold C.

[bearracecars]

matt
you are correct. that is the front view. so if i understand, i would have to draw the part in mastercam in 3d. I've just been using 2d dxfs from autocad.
attached is the top view and the front view. then i would assume that would be the same for the holes.
I'm such a newb. a friend of mine has been doing the cam work for me till i can afford this program, but he lives across the country. so i email him the files and he sends me the g code. so far so good. but this is an upcoming job that hopfully will pay for mastercam. I would definitely like to be able to program this one myself.
attached is the front view and the top view.

thank you very much
bear

[Matt Berube]

Originally Posted by bearracecars matt you are correct. that is the front view. so if i understand, i would have to draw the part in mastercam in 3d. I've just been using 2d dxfs from autocad. attached is the top view and the front view. then i would assume that would be the same for the holes. I'm such a newb. a friend of mine has been doing the cam work for me till i can afford this program, but he lives across the country. so i email him the files and he sends me the g code. so far so good. but this is an upcoming job that hopfully will pay for mastercam. I would definitely like to be able to program this one myself. attached is the front view and the top view. thank you very much bear

Hey Bear,

I took a few minutes and made a video at break-time today...

EDIT: here's the link... http://www.4shared.com/file/12285230...AL_DEPTHS.html

Keep in mind when you watch it that I made it rather quick & dirty... I didn't bother to shift the geometry to a sensible origin or anything... I just went with it the way it was. If I were actually planning on cutting this part I would have shifted the geometry to the origin or created a "WCS" to use for the toolpath.

Where you are asking about re-drawing the part in 3-D I would answer that it's not necessary. In my opinion this is part of what makes Mastercam so powerful... Most often you can just work from whatever geometry you have available 2-D, 3-D, a little of both... whatever... There are usually many different ways it can be programmed with Mastercam.

[Boots]

99% of my programming is from the top view because I do a lot of profile cutting. You can have multiple passes and rough and finish operations from top view in 2D.

[Matt Berube]

Posted video (above). Please let me know if this helps...

[bearracecars]

are you kidding me, you made a video! thats awesome. wow, with a video it makes it very easy to do.

do you have any suggestions for an online tutorial, video set or literature?

thank you so much for your time and effort.

bear

[Matt Berube]

Originally Posted by bearracecars are you kidding me, you made a video! thats awesome. wow, with a video it makes it very easy to do. do you have any suggestions for an online tutorial, video set or literature? thank you so much for your time and effort. bear

I've never used any of the training materials but I wouldn't hesitate to try anything listed here. I've heard good things about most of this stuff.

http://www.mastercam.com/Support/Lea...s/Default.aspx