Part machining poorly

[bilingham]

Am am having problems with this part:

a pretty nasty looking piece. This was finished with "Spiral with circles", step over of .002, with a 1/16" two flute carbide ball end mill running at 10,000 rpm.

[HughesTooling]

Try setting direction to one way so the tool path climb mills for the entire path, I also set to start at the inside just to be sure. Only other suggestion is tighten the tolerance as the part is quite small. 

[bilingham]

Interesting​ suggestions. I will make the adjustments and run the part again.  More pictures soon.

[HughesTooling]

I didn't notice at first but your pocketing op is not going through the part so the finishing spiral is going to plunge through the stock that's left. Depending on where the plunges are it might cause a problem, you might want to do another pocketing op with rest enabled and a smaller cutter.

Mark

[bilingham]

I could clear the back of the part first.  wouldn't that accomplish the same thing?

[HughesTooling]

I'd just make sure you have the holes through between the spokes before running the finish op, I don't think the roughing cutter you're using fits.

[bilingham]

So you'd recommend a second roughing step, using a smaller cutter?  Maybe use a square end 1/16" and run a second adaptive clearing?  I'd go from a .085 two flute ball mill the a .0625 two flute square, to a .0625 two flute ball end for the finishing cut.

[HughesTooling]

If you rough with a flat bottom tool I think it will spoil the surface because it will remove more material than the ball end. Take a look at the attached file using the same ball nosed cutter as the finish op.

Mark

[bilingham]

I cannot get the file you posted to open.  Please describe what it shows.

[Steinwerks · Accepted solution]

---

@bilingham wrote:

I cannot get the file you posted to open.  Please describe what it shows.

---

In Fusion go to File -> New Design From File and choose @HughesTooling's temp.f3d from the directory it was saved in. You can't really "open" files in the file system like most formats.

[bilingham]

Many thanks for all the help.  I believe that some combination of all you advice will solve my issues.

[bilingham]

So I took all the offered advice and machined a new wheel.  It is significantly improved.  much better finish, many flaws eliminated.

It does still have a few issues to fix.. Each of the spokes has one side, the left, with a smooth radius.  the other side has a sharp edge. This will require more experimenting.  Also, the tool paths are much too complex with lots of  picking up and moving the tool around the face.  my goal is a good wheel in 20 minutes of machining.

[HughesTooling]

It might be worth doing away with the second roughing op and just drill 5 holes through the job as the first op then pocket then finish. What machine and control are you using?

Mark

[bilingham]

I use Mach3.  This wheel was machined with "pocket clearing" followed by "spiral with circles".  I used the same 1/16 carbide end mills for both operations. 10,000 rpm.