Contour milling

[MRx]

Hi,

is there any plan to support a certain stepping width settings for contour milling?
Eg. when milling steel freecad would fully engage with the milling bit for clearance.
I tried to use the pocket operation - which would almost be okay but it's really doing some zig-zag which would climbing and conventional milling and when milling several layers sometimes it would fully engage inside the material as well.

There should be multiple steps down to the actual size of the object, eg. for steel and using a 6mm endmill I can go 0.6-0.7mm per turn with my machine at 2200rpm, the freecad contour option would fully engage 6mm and break the carbide endmill.

For now I have just written the g-code by hand with some loops and it works okay (actually I only need 2 sides to be contour-milled and not the entire stock).

[GeneFC]

I don't quite understand what you are missing. There are several options for cutting width, cutting depth, step-downs, ramps, lead-ins, path styles (zig-zag, circular, etc.) and so on.

I often cut stainless steel and I have no problem finding suitable parameters for a cutting path.

If you have a specific example file it would help understand the issue.

Gene

[m12lrpv]

If i'm not mistaken the OP is questioning how sensible the defaults are. The default step down being equal to the bit diameter will break bits for most users.

[GeneFC]

I think the default in one-half the tool diameter, but in any case this can be adjusted in the SetupSheet contained in the Job hierarchy.

Gene

[MRx]

Actually I was referring to the horizontal stepping not to the vertical stepping, I can clear the part with adaptive clearance. I will upload a sample later and my g-code how I cleared it for now.