making finishing paths more efficient?

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falviani
Posts: 250
Joined: Tue May 07, 2019 8:49 pm

making finishing paths more efficient?

Post by falviani »

Hi all,

I have a few projects in mind where I'd like to have a roughing pass with a largish cutter (up to 1/4") and then finish with a small cutter (around 1mm). As an experiment I put together a quick test where there was a large pocket in the model and then a couple of small blocks extruded from the pocket bottom 1.1 mm apart. When I did a roughing pass with a 3mm endmill then a finishing pass with a 1mm endmill (to cut between the blocks) the finishing pass processed the entire area already cut with the 3mm endmill. In other words, a tremendous waste of time. Is there a way I could have restricted the finishing pass?

I believe in Fusion 360 (which I use occasionally) a path can have a 'rest' attribute, which causes it to ignore areas that have already been processed. I'm looking for something equivalent, even if I have to do some manual masking.

Thanks in advance,
Frank
chrisb
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Re: making finishing paths more efficient?

Post by chrisb »

You can reduce the StartDepth. I usually edit the expression and subtract the amount I want to skip.
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falviani
Posts: 250
Joined: Tue May 07, 2019 8:49 pm

Re: making finishing paths more efficient?

Post by falviani »

It's not so much the depth as avoiding entire areas. Consider milling a sign - the roughing cutter won't be able to cut between letters (and only roughly around those letters), and I want a finish pass to ONLY cut between letters and refine their shapes.
chrisb
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Re: making finishing paths more efficient?

Post by chrisb »

Ah, that's something different. Have a look at https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=40399.
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herbk
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Re: making finishing paths more efficient?

Post by herbk »

falviani wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2019 8:45 pm It's not so much the depth as avoiding entire areas. Consider milling a sign - the roughing cutter won't be able to cut between letters (and only roughly around those letters), and I want a finish pass to ONLY cut between letters and refine their shapes.
If i need this, i use a little workaround:
If i work with an 3mm endmill, i use a toolcontroller for a 3,2mm endmill for the first work, what lefts 0,1mm material.
For the finish path i use the 3mm toolcontroller and a contour OP to remove the rest.
Gruß Herbert
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