I'm new, Please help with lots of questions

[I'm_Lost]

I only have VERY limited knowledge of Surfcam and I have to do this for my project. Please take a look at the picture:



I want to do the contour but the tool path is wrong. The ball mill is going in from the bottom instead of the top. I tried to change the coordinates but it didn't help. How do I change it so it will start lead in from the top?

Later, I have to turn the piece up side down to do the pocket. How do I tell the program to pause so I can turn it up side down? How do I tell the program that I have turned it 180 degrees and start milling from the opposite?

I'm new at this and I know these are simple stuffs but I'm lost. Thank you very much in advance.

[tnik]

all has to do with your coordinate system and where your XYZ zero is.

I normally do everything in construction view (cview) with a normal vertical mill, x axis goes left to right, y axis goes back and forth, z axis is up and down. you would want z positive to be pointed up.. here's a test part I made, notice the location of the xyz0 above the part, I actually made the top far right corner of my stock my zero point (which isn't normal operation, normally I would select a finished face of the part to be Z zero, but as it was just a test piece, I didn't worry about it any). To flip the part over, I would just create another xyz0 on the bottom side and run a new setup operation, which would create a separate program.

[I'm_Lost]

I didn't know about the set up and already did the part in Solidworks with the coordinates shown. Is there a way to change that in Surfcam or I have to go back to Solidworks and change over there?

[tnik]

yes you can create it in surfcam, click the cview button and create a new cview. multiple ways to do it. search the help files also, they give more in depth knowledge about it.

[dewcnc]

On your stock setup your material thickness (corner 2 Z axis) needs to be a negative number.