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How can I get a HighFeed Mill to adjust the output correctly in relation to its geometry. The model I have is a STEP file. I am able to get a correct path when milling a vertical wall but it won't recognize that the Cutter_Diam is not at the bottom of the tool. It is essentially adjusting it like it is a square endmill. Here is what the tool looks like.
It appears that it is using the cutter diam at the tooltip instead of adjusting to the radius on the tool. Unfortunately I can't put a corner radius value in because it consists of multiple radii.
Thanks in advance.
Jason,
Not sure you can do much about the multiple radii at the bottom of the cutter. It's just a roughing tool or at least that's the way I use them. I have a couple of them modeled and I just use the tip at the very bottom and outside diameter for cutter diam and a corner radius to match the corner then classify it as a "bull Mill" and call it close enough. If I am running a high feed cutter I am leaving enough stock to not worry about all the cutter geometry.
Thanks for the reply Steve... I was afraid that was what I was going to have to do. You are correct that it is just a roughing tool, but I was hoping to be able to rough very close to my finished shape. I found a radius that works with the "Bull Mill" parameters and I put them into the solid model so I can reference the true geometry of the tool up against the part. Here is what I came up with.
It looks good there, but as it goes lower it starts to dig into the radius a little bit so I will either adjust the corner_radius which will move it farther away at the point shown or adjust my boundary blend to compensate for the error.
I fully understand that the software would have a difficult time adjusting the toolpath for a tool with multiple radii like this one. But I am surprised that we can't create a tool with one radius like a bull mill but have the radius not be tangent to the OD. I believe that this would get me very close to what I am looking for. I attempted this with the "Sketch" tool to create a tool but I couldn't get it to work. I know its like comparing apples and oranges, but I was previously working at a job where we used Siemens NX to program and it had a nice 7-parameter mill in which you could create a hognose type tool and then specify the distance to the center point of the corner radius from the centerline of the tool and the tip of the tool. They have had multi parameter mills for a long time now. The 10-paramter mill would get me even closer. These were just like creating a standard tool where you fill in the boxes.