Helical Pocketing

[jdingus]

When performing helical boring in surfcam.
i.e. taking a 2" Indexing mill and helically interpolating down the center of the
bore to rough it out. Ideally would like to do a finish pass at the bottom of a blind bore.

Know of a few ways just wanted to know quickest / easiest you guys have came across, seems like there should be a more direct way to perform.

1) 2 axis pocket - set helical plunge - play with parameters to where the plunge is in the center of the bore

2) Draw helix and then 3 axis contour

3) True Mill - heard this way but don't know the settings to use

4) Thread mill

Thanks in advance.....

[Judge Leo]

Option 1 should give you the results you're looking for. By getting the job done in one operation you can save the operation and re-use it later.

[jdingus]

Do you happen to know how to change the parameters so it ends up going down the center of the bore?

When you set it to helical plunge and the defaults it normally helically plunges down the sidewall and then finished the bore at the bottom.

By changing the parameters we can get it close but haven't figured out the exact way to do it. It's always off by a couple thou or so.

thanks,

jd

[tnik]

yea, its pretty simple.. I'll walk ya through it..

first, when you select the geometry for the contour path, make sure you pick the center as the plunge.

then say you have a 3.5 bore - 2.0 deep to do, and you pick the top geometry of the hole, in the Z depth and stepdown , put 2.0 , then choose the helical plunge.

angle can be left at auto

radius: set to constant and use this formula

radius of hole - radius of cutter - stock you want to leave

eg. 1.75-1.-.015 = .735

I ususally leave min width at default

then you just play with the pitch number to get the ramp angle/pitch that you want.

setup your finish pass like normal, and your set to go..

hth

[jdingus]

Exactly what I was looking for.
Been playing with some other variables that I think was messing me up.
Will try this out.

Thanks again

JD