2D contour, Predrilled entry point, feeding instead of plunge or rapid..

[cmleschak]

I have a part I am running that required multiple shallow stepdowns. I am using a 2D contour to clear out material left after drilling the majority out. I am then selecting a drilled point for my point of entry. I would think that this option should allow the tool to rapid into the hole, or at least feed at the higher plunge rate I have selected (30IPM). Instead its feeding at my cutting feedrate of 5IPM all the way down..  This normally isnt so much of an issue because it only needs to feed down once for a contour, but in this case it is stepping down about 22 times. That feed up and down between passes is adding over 6 minutes of runtime to that operation.  If I deselect drilled entry point it will plunge at my programmed 30IPM, but its feeding into material which damages the tool. I need to rapid or high feeddown in the predrilled hole.  Am I missing something, or is this not correct in the program?

[LibertyMachine]

There have always been some level of issue with the Plunge feedrates in a lot of the 2D toolpaths. This is one of those areas...

If you turn off "Keep Tool Down", you will see that it obeys the Plunge Feedrate. The downside is that it rapids up out of the hole.

Pick your poison 🙂

[Anonymous]

"Warning: Cannot use drill positions because keep tool down is not activated."

This ends up with the same problem as before. I dont care if it rapids out of the finished part, but I cant have it rapid down anywhere besides the pre drilled hole.  If I deselect keep tool down is does rapid down, but no longer in the drill location, now it does it near the wall where material will be left after the previous operation. 

I can manually edit this post process, but its tough when you have to fine tune a program and repost a few times. Manually editing multiple times just leaves a door open for error.   Maybe this should be posted in the ideastation as a future update. 

[LibertyMachine]

Yup, I see that now. Well, one possible solution then is setting your lead-in/out to this:

Define your Start Position as your drilled hole and you get this: