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R
raviles1-Visitor
1-Visitor
October 8, 2014
Question

Profile milling, avoiding retract

  • October 8, 2014
  • 4 replies
  • 8021 views

I've been fighting Creo2 (and WF4 previously), trying to avoid or suppress retracting while in a profile milling sequence. I have the retract plane defined 50mm above the fixture and part, but I have a wide open space where the tool could simply move from the end of one cut to the start of the next with no interference. Creo insists on retracting which is a waste of time and causes unnecessary wear and tear of the machine.

One friend suggested placing the retract plane at the bottom of the feature but that doesn't work either. At this point, I'm simply editing out the offending code in the NC program, but this is a major PITA.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks,

Ray Aviles

Manufacturing Engineer 2


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4 replies

R
razmosis13-Aquamarine
13-Aquamarine
October 9, 2014

Do you have the parameter APPR_EXIT_HEIGHT set for DEPTH OF CUT, rather than RETRACT PLANE?

R
raviles1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
October 9, 2014

Matt,

Thanks for the reply but unfortunately, it didn't help. APPR_EXIT_HEIGHT was already set to DEPTH OF CUT. I tried setting it to RETRACT PLANE but that made no difference either.

I'll keep plugging away at it.

Ray Aviles

Manufacturing Engineer 2

S
SteveLucas1-Visitor
1-Visitor
October 9, 2014

Ray,

If you change the CUT_TYPE from climb to zig zag it stays in the cut better. I do that for roughing with profile.

Steve

R
razmosis13-Aquamarine
13-Aquamarine
October 9, 2014

My other thought would be the use of volume milling instead of profile milling, profile only, with optimized retract and retract set to depth of cut. One or the other works most of the time for me, but there are still a lot of times that I can't shake the retracts either.

Matt

M
mthompson1-Visitor
1-Visitor
October 9, 2014

Ray,

Have you tried a cutline milling seq using a mill surface?

When I have a part with a gap thats what I mostly use.

R
raviles1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
October 9, 2014

Mike,

No I haven't, but I'll try that tonight. I may back on-line begging for help because this will be a first for me.

Thanks,

Ray Aviles

Manufacturing Engineer 2

G
gkoch1-Visitor
1-Visitor
October 13, 2014

Hi Ramon,

would you share your experience with the suggestions made by Steve, Matt and Mike?

I am sure we are all interested in hearing from you.

Thanks,

Gunter

M
mthompson1-Visitor
1-Visitor
October 14, 2014

WIDGET.png

using cutline milling with a helical scan type

G
gkoch1-Visitor
1-Visitor
October 20, 2014

Ramon,

what I understand, the toolpath that would be created by Steve's suggestion (filling the gap with a surface path), is basically what you want, only you need rapid feed when the tool moves in the air, right?

That said, I assume Mike's suggestion is not what you are looking for, as the tool still evades the gap?

Did you also try Matt's suggestion with Volume Milling?

Gunter

R
raviles1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
October 21, 2014

Gunter,

I agree, Steve's suggestion is exactly what I need, planar profile cuts, rapid across gap without retract. Mike's toolpath machines the entire profile so it's not quite what I need.


I tried volume milling but had major difficulty creating the mill volume. Once that was done, tried many combinations of parameters but saw no useable toolpath.

Dumb question: Is there a way to create mill surfaces with styles? I created a sweep mill surface, no problemo. I then used COS by intersect to create curves on the surface with a plane, then trimmed the surface so that it can be milled with planar cuts.

But the resulting style is not a mill surface, at least according to the model tree. Profile milling ignores it. So, I created mill surface with boundary blend from the style. The profile module likes it and does its thing.

Obviously, I have very little experience with surfaces and volumes. I still haven't figured out what a mill window is...

Custom Trajectory has been my "Go To" milling module, at least until I discovered profile milling when I encountered my problem casting, which was a first for me. As I said previously, I try to avoid volume milling like the plague; I've not had much luck with it.

FYI, I've taking the manufacturing module training three different times; once with V19, once with 2000i2, and the last with WF2. If I remember correctly, one of the training workpieces was a cell phone, which is completely different that the weldments that I typically machine. Needless to say, I left the instructors scratching their heads as to how to machine some features in our parts (I provided models as the training took place at our facility).

Ah well, I will keep plugging away.

Thanks,

Ray Aviles

Manufacturing Engineer 2

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