tool data not being stored

[routalot]

I have had problems getting OpenCamLib installed with Linux mint.I found the rather ancient instructions for carrying out the process worked for the first few steps and then suddenly asked me for other things that I don't really know enough about.Since I am now in my sixties and would prefer to be making stuff than learning the intricacies of Linux Terminal commands,I switched to Windows 10 as I know it works-usually.

The basic installation was easy,enabling experimental features is something I know about and again it wasn't difficult.So I created a test object to see if 3D surfacing worked.Not too hard to create an object and when I went to the setup page for machining nothing remarkable until I tried to store tool data for a ball end mill.The tool table came up and I typed in the values.

As I hope you can see,the values were there until I hit OK and there was nothing recorded.At first I hadn't noticed this and it wasn't until I saw a message in red at the bottom left hand corner of the screen that I knew why not toolpath had been generated.By opening the tool controller and once more inputting the values I was able to get a toolpath.Is there something else I should have done to store the tool data?

OS: Windows 10
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.18.4 (GitTag)
Build type: Release
Branch: releases/FreeCAD-0-18
Hash: 980bf9060e28555fecd9e3462f68ca74007b70f8
Python version: 3.6.6
Qt version: 5.6.2
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.3.0
Locale: English/UnitedKingdom (en_GB)

[chrisb]

Perhaps you mixed somethig up between tool - which is defined in the tooltable - and toolcontroller - which is used in the job. You can edit the tool in the controller, thus creating a tool "on the fly" which is not stored in your tool table.

[routalot]

Thanks for taking an interest and making an entirely reasonable suggestion.I have just created another piece and tried to define a different endmill to check the process.In the file named new tool definition I added the values and hit OK and in the file named new tool not defined they all show as zeros.

By going to the edit function of the tool controller,I was able to input the values and they stuck,enabling me to view a toolpath.It only seems to happen with ball end mills.

[chrisb]

It is possible that things are out of whack, because most path operations don't respect the shape anyway, they always assume an endmill.

[routalot]

I hadn't had a problem with my Linux installation and the 3D surfaces were machined correctly.Since I have tried using the Windows 10 version of Freecad the only problem I have encountered is the inputting of tool data for ball end mills.The actual toolpath generates quite quickly and cuts as it should once the details are actually entered via the tool controller editor.I may spend some more hours fumbling through the Linux Mint edition to persuade the OpenCamLib to actually work as it used to be entirely satisfactory.