Need help: cutting a vertical wall

[Jerry McFarland]

I just started learning Visualmill 6.0 yesterday and was able to start cutting a part on my Tormach mill today but I am stuck at one point. I am using a 1/4" flat straight shank end mill and would like to have the cutter machine a single flat side on a wood part. The thickness is .700 and my endmill has a 1.5" flute so there should be no problem if I could just figure out how to do it. I enclosed a picture of the part, I am planning to machine the two sides with the hook shape and then hold it in a fixture for the last slot cut out.

Visualmill6.0 is great I made a lot of progress in two days.

[DareBee]

I am not sure what you are trying to do? (explanation doesn't work for me).
My original answer would be the same as MecSoft Support gave you.
However I am looking at the PDF and wondering if you are trying to cut the SLOT?
I would fixture the part "slot up" in a vice.
I would create regions to make an extended length box and use 2.5D profile to do the machining (using a 2 point circle from end to end with a trim works good in some cases too).
You could use pocketing without having to create the "extensions" but then the cutter has to start IN the part. Not the best way and will leave excessive machining marks.
Give it a try, if you get stuck attach the VCP and I will modify to show you what I mean.

[Jerry McFarland]

Hi DareBee, thanks for the offer of help. I got some good info from the Mechsoft forum, see below:

MechSoft: Sun Jul 12, 2009 6:56 pm
The easiest way to do this is to create a curve that represents the side wall. If it is just a straight wall then this would just be a line. Then select this as the machining region and then use the 2-1/2 axis profiling toolpath method with depth of cut to be the depth of the sidewall that you want to machine.

Hope this helps.

Jerry Mcf: Mon Jul 13, 2009 4:48 am
That was a big help and I made some progress with that. So I drew a straight line picking the point 0,0,0 to -1,0,0. So under 2 1/2 Axis Profiling + Machining Features/Regions + Select Curves as Regions, I selected the line then entered my Cut Levels and Cut Parameters and selected Generate. A straight wall cut profile was created like I wanted to do for a practice area. Two issues remain:
1. How do I find the x,y,z points for the two corners I want to use as end points for my actual area to machine? I picked 0,0,0 as a practice point since I did not know the actual x.y.z coordinates of the two corners on the part. Do I need to get them from my CAD drawing? Or is there a way in Visual mill to get coordinates?
2. I was not able to click on a corner of the part in Visual mill to start the line, at this point I can get it to work but must enter the x,y,z values.

[Jerry McFarland]

DareBee,
I tried to upload the .vcp but it is not an allowed file type, any suggestions?
Jerry

[DareBee]

Like I said

My original answer would be the same as MecSoft Support gave you.

What I do to upload a non supported file is cheat the system or zip it.
I prefer to cheat.
Just rename the .vcp to .zip and then put a note in your post telling us that it is NOT a zip to just rename it to .vcp
You could use .jpg or .pdf but the only allow 500kb whereas zip allows 8.5mb

[Jerry McFarland]

I called Mecsoft tech support and Uday provided a solution.
This consisted of drawing a line using the SNAP TO END button on the bottom toolbar to snap to the part vertexes to allow drawing the line on the part edge. Then continuing with 2 1/2 Axis Profiling to machine the edge.

Thanks DareBee for the suggestion on how to include .vcp files, that will help a lot for next time.

[Jerry McFarland]

Included is a .zip file that is really a .vcp file. Change the extension and you can view the part in VisualMill. Thanks DareBee for the suggestion.