Is there a way to machine the side walls of a non-cylindrical shape (tear drop) in a helical motion? I don't want to machine a depth and then plunge to the next depth but helix down to the full depth and make a finish pass there.
Thanks
Samuel,
Mastercam and HSMworks fully support this programming approach, what is just great for some situations. I've opened a enhancement request a year ago at PTC to ask them to support this for 2D trajectory milling (I complained about this with Mr. francois Lamy - PTC Director for Tooling/NC Solutions) and they told me they do not plan to implement this... sadly PTC does not listen us when we ask for simple things that makes differences in the shop floor... ramp countouring is one of such features... it can save a lot of time and improve substancially the surface finish/tool life...
This strategy is also very useful to machine plates with very thin plates glued to each other. Since there are no lead in/out moves between successive depths, the tool moves continuosly to the Z negative direction, keeping the material layers to keep glued to each other. Without this strategy, the lead-in / lead-out moves causes the scraps of some parts...
Well, I was told back then that you can do it using volume milling with the options "Profile only" and "S Connection"... never tried this way though...
Would you mind to test this and let us now if it works for ya?
Good luck,
Regards,
Daniel Santos - Sr. NC Programmer / CAM Support
Liebherr Aerospace Brasil