Best Way to machine this part in rhinocam 1.0?

[blau_schuh]

Just wondering what peoples thoughts are for milling this simple small detail part.

Ultimately, I want a smooth floor under the "H", and a smooth profiled letter.

I want something like:

1) 1/8" flat endmill: leave the H alone and hog out all the other stuff about the letter within some distance from the final part, BUT take the horizontal level all the way down to the finished depth. I'm not sure how to set up the parameters to make this happen
2) 1/32" endmill: finish pass to clean up the places where pass 1) missed

I's like to almost do a expanding 2d profile passed from inside to outside in order to clean up all the crud that wasn't milled by the first pass

[awerby]

Have you tried a horizontal roughing procedure with your flat tool, using Facing and a stock thickness? After that, run a profiling operation, without the stock margin. And then, to clean up the base plane, do a horizontal finishing operation restricted to a Z height that excludes your letter. Then follow that up with parallel finishing, using the smaller ball-nose tool, to detail the "H". There might be a simpler way, but I think that should work.

Andrew Werby
ComputerSculpture.com — Home Page for Discount Hardware & Software

[blau_schuh]

Have you tried a horizontal roughing procedure with your flat tool, using Facing and a stock thickness? After that, run a profiling operation, without the stock margin. And then, to clean up the base plane, do a horizontal finishing operation restricted to a Z height that excludes your letter. Then follow that up with parallel finishing, using the smaller ball-nose tool, to detail the "H". There might be a simpler way, but I think that should work.

Andrew Werby
ComputerSculpture.com — Home Page for Discount Hardware & Software

Hi Andrew, not sure what you mean by horizontal roughing and facing. it's one or the other in rhinocam, isn't it?. What do you mean by stock thickness? Are you talking about the Stock global parameter?

after my first roughing op (post_first_rough picture), both the material around the letter and the surrounding flat surface are > 0.01 out of final tolerance. OK for the letter since I am going to buzz it with a profile. This is sort of what you've described above. This is with intol/outol = 0.001 and stock=0.025.

I am not sure how to set up the parallel finish. I was setting up intol/outol = 0.0156 (half diameter of my finish bit) and stock=0 that results in the area around the H being machined to final height, but it also nicks the H (post_par_finish pic). Id like to set it up so that the roughing bit stays at least 0.015 from the H so that I can clean it up after.

I guess I need to know how to exclude a region when doing the parallel finish.

[awerby]

Hi Andrew, not sure what you mean by horizontal roughing and facing. it's one or the other in rhinocam, isn't it?.

[No; within the horizontal roughing dialog, in the Cut Parameters tab, there are options to do pocketing or facing. Pocketing is where you're basically digging a hole, relative to the stock; facing is where you're removing everything that's not your part.]

What do you mean by stock thickness? Are you talking about the Stock global parameter?

[Yes, just underneath the tolerances. A value there represents the thickness of material left between the cut and the final surface of your part.]


I am not sure how to set up the parallel finish. I was setting up intol/outol = 0.0156 (half diameter of my finish bit) and stock=0 that results in the area around the H being machined to final height, but it also nicks the H (post_par_finish pic).

[Keep the tolerances at .001, if that's how much leeway you've got. Tool radius compensation is figured out automatically. A higher value in the intol panel allows it to "nick" your part that much.]

Id like to set it up so that the roughing bit stays at least 0.015 from the H so that I can clean it up after.

[That would be your "stock" thickness.]

I guess I need to know how to exclude a region when doing the parallel finish.

[You can do that by creating a region with an "island" in the middle.]

Andrew Werby
ComputerSculpture.com — Home Page for Discount Hardware & Software