resolution,tooling or file?

[srwtlc]

One thing to look at would be the triangle/polygon count of your stl. It could be a low count and this would give you a surface that has many large facets. On top of that, if you scale it up, it could get worse. From your description, I'd say it would be better and faster to do it as a 2d cut or just a 3d cut around the bumps (whatever they are) and 2d for the rest. For the holes, a 1.5º 0.125" tapered ballnose would do the trick and by using a spiral ramp, it would be fast. For this toolpath, I'd set your rapid for the Z axis as fast as possible (standard or alpha will dictate how fast) and remove the dust foot. This way, when the toolpath for each hole is finished, it will rise up fast and without the dust foot, the waste piece won't 'jam' the tool. Doing it this way saves a lot of time by not having to pocket out the hole. For SB's, we generally use inches per second, so 3 ipm would be .05 ips, and that would be sloooow. Perhaps you meant ips.

Using a 0.25" downcut endmill will never give good results for finish toolpaths, as it needs a ballnose to follow the contour properly.


As Kyle demonstrated, just use the spiral down toolpath and let the waste piece stay or pop out and clean up later. Saves a lot of pocket time.

[outcaststudios]

WOW!! super super helpful guys!! ok i will head back to the drawing board and give it another go, i think kyle is right for sure ...2d is my friend here. the 3d was just more convenient at the time,due to my limited knowledge. wow!

[srwtlc]

There's also a ramp setting that will make the spiral down toolpath cut a bit faster/better, by keeping the machine in the set move speed and not dropping into ramp speed. I use this toolpath strategy to cut golf ball holes and by using the 1.5º tapered ballnose to cut it, the ball wedges nicely in the hole.

That ramp setting (VR) is Minimum Dist to Check and set it to .05 to make it a bit quicker. Set it back when finished to default of .15 or the better choice of .08.

[outcaststudios]

ok so it is definitely better to cut this 2D ...much better results. however the holes and the bumps are not round as they are supposed to be.
i checked the motors pinion to be sure it is fully engaged ,they are. the file was from DXF so i know the holes were round in the file. and the vectors were also round when i selected them in Vcarve...what else could be causing this? its on some but not all. i will post pics asap.....thanks!
-gregor

[srwtlc]

Gregor, take a close look at the circles by selecting them with 'Node Edit'. If they are true circles, you should see only 4 nodes and no extended handles. I'm guessing that since it was a dxf, that you'll see many, many nodes and this will make for a segmented or choppy circle that could also be out of round to a degree. It might be best to completely recreate the 'circle/dot' pattern with the drawing tools and copy array tools.

Post your dxf if it's ok to do so and we can take a look at it too.

[outcaststudios]

scott,
will do , i will do that asap.appreciate the help! the original file had fillets and draft added to it ,so there were definitely concentric circles in the dxf file ,which makes perfect sense since it would import all that information from the 3d model. thanks again!
-gregor

[outcaststudios]

here are two shots of the same piece. there seem to be different results throughout. the pocket operation that i did to get the round(seen here as almost hexagonal) bumps used a 1/4 straight cutter. shoudl i have used a different cutter? the master DXF file is forthcoming ...some of the bumps are round and others are hexagonal or just sloppy, why is that?

[ADAPT_Shop-Brady]

Have you ran the file in preview mode in SB3 to see how it appears there?
Might be helpful to upload your sbp file here to if possible for keen eyes to review.

[outcaststudios]

i tried to upload the dxf and the SB3 docs but they exceed the website limit. anywhere else i can post them?email? i did run a preview in vcarve and it looked a littel ragged too. not in sb3 yet im still trying to figure out how to do that in that program.

[outcaststudios]

here is a jpeg of the master file (dxf)