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I will try to address multiple things here as clearly as I can:

 

1. tommyscustomshopwhen we add .0002 or even .0001 this is what happens the tool rises off the surface

I apologise, I gave you slightly the wrong solution to reproduce old behaviour. Just add a tiny tiny radial clearance, not axial clearance to the avoid model surfaces. It should work with a very small value, and if it's only radial, the passes shouldn't lift off of the surface the way you describe.

 

2. dames123Perhaps they should have left both options in the software

We are realising that we underestimated the impact the total change would have on customers. We are working with a workflow designer to see how we can improve things in this area, but we can't make any promises at this stage. We are aware of the issue of not having a simple workflow anymore and will try to address it.

 

3. tommyscustomshopYes Autodesk already owns PowerMill so they know what to do. We just need them to know this is a need  

I started my career as a programmer on powermill toolpath algorithms, so yes this is familiar territory :-). Unfortunately, this is a case where tuning things in one direction causes the waterfall problem and tuning them away from that causes surfaces to not be fully machined in other common cases. You probably agree that is not a good situation to be in. It is one thing having to trim the toolpath away, but when the toolpath falls just short of the edge of the surface, it is fairly useless. If we knew how to tune things to prevent both problems occuring, we would certainly do that. 

 

4. tommyscustomshopIf they ran cnc centers day in and day out they would know how much this would benefit machining and the longevity of the machines so it is up to us to make it known.

We actually have a machine shop on our site, which has done commercial consulting work for decades, using our software in all sorts of industries. Lately it has reduced the consulting work and is focussing heavily on testing the software. The machininsts have decades of experience, which we can leverage to make the software better. Unfortunately, the toolpath algorithms have to serve customers doing every different geometry under the sun, and sometimes we hit problems that are very difficult to resolve. In this case, solving the waterfall problem causes another worse one and we can't see right now how to fix things so that both go away at the same time. We are still thinking though, and your feedback is immensely valuable to us. If many people report a problem, we will put more resource towards finding a solution, so thanks again for speaking up.

 

All the best,

Tessa



Tessa Colledge

Senior Software Engineer