Limiting depth of cut for a surface

[ian.rees]

Have been looking at the code for the surfacing tool a bit today - the step down mentioned earlier in the thread is only used for picking the depths to compute the water line at. It seems like there's some weirdness in the OCL waterline implementation, although I'm guessing that the drop cutter algorithm will be more useful for my immediate project anyways.

So, my current thinking is to make a new tool intended just for rouging out a part. Then, one of the surfacing tools can be used to get the final shape.

[herbk]

Hi ian,

So, my current thinking is to make a new tool intended just for rouging out a part.

In need to mill a some parts with a little difficulty shape, so i'm thinking about getting a gcode with existing tools...
For rawing i get after a few attempts this:

3d-rawing.png (100.7 KiB) Viewed 678 times

The way i get the path is:
1. create the part (of course )
2. make a secound peace (let's call it "helper") in size of raw material
3. make a fusion of both parts
4. set the hight of the helper to the first cut level
5. make a pocket on this level
6. export the gcode to a .ngc file
7. delete the path

8. set the helper to the next cutting level
9. make a pocket on this level
10. set the start depht of the path to the hight of the former helper level
11. export the gcode to a .ngc file
12. delete the path

13. repeat step 8 to 12 for each cutting level needed

14. open the .ngc files with an text editor an combine it to one.
15. don't forget to delete all unneedet lines...

Here the part with the "helper" on a "midd range level"

3d.png (68.47 KiB) Viewed 679 times

I tried to record a macro for it, but it doesn't work...