Conversion and pocketing letters

[Anonymous]

Hi I am new to this and having some issues. First off I can extrude text and make it a negative into the stock but I can't get my setup to cut out the lettering, it just wants to adaptive contour it. Whenever I set to pocket or engrave it tells me theres no toolpath. I even tried not extruding the text into the block and it still doesn't seem to recognize the text when I try to cut it out, it only sees it as something it can contour up to. My X,Y, Z axis are all orientated properly as far as I can tell.

Also made a program just a box and some cutouts and it comes in at half scale everytime. I am running UCCNC and finding Fusion doesn't seem to want to cooperate just like any of the free software out there. 

[johnswetz1982]

File>Export>*.f3d and attach your file here so someone can take a look at what you have setup.

[Anonymous]

Thanks please advise

[johnswetz1982 · Accepted solution]

Your features are too small for your tool. You have a feature that is 2mm wide but there is .5mm stock leave (each side) so 1mm wide and you also have to take into account the lead-in lead out dimensions as well as the minimum cutting diameter.

Also unless you have some amazing machine adaptive is not going to work as good for such tiny features and movements. You generally want a fairly large cutting radius because your machine needs time to accelerate and decelerate.

For what you are doing I would look at the engraving tool path. You will not be able to get a flat bottom but if you are just trying to get letters or mark your product it is the better route.

[Anonymous]

Thanks John, appreciate the quick response. I have been messing around with simple toolpaths trying to see what the limitations so that information helps to make sense of the kinds of movement it's trying to make when I had it adaptive clear instead of pocket the holes.

Can you explain why it wants to make the path rising into the air for the text like its embossing? This his been the major source of why I haven't messed around with the other tool path creations on it because I assumed there to be an axis issues or something. 

[johnswetz1982 · Accepted solution]

Because you picked the outside of the part as one of your curve selections. For something like this most CAD programs will work outside in so that the "middle" portion is solid and the next selection in are "holes". If you picked only the letters you would just get a failed to generate tool path or an error about the linking parameters not generating a toolpath.

[Anonymous]

OK that was very helpful, thanks. Itt was throwing me off that it would accept the lettering when attached to the face and not independently. You said engraving won't get to the bottom of the lettering so I'm curious about pocketing and slotting and how they can be applied, if at all to lettering.  

[johnswetz1982 · Accepted solution]

You would need an appropriate sized bit for the width of the features you are trying to machine. But you will also have problems getting a narrow bit that deep without breaking unless you are predrilling.

Why does the bottom need to be square and why would engraving not be a good option?

[Anonymous]

John, it doesn't have to be square I was just curious of how the different tool paths are created. I've been using some janky free software until now and I'm trying to get my bearings with Fusion is all. I guess I should have made it more clear that this is just a sample file I'm using to test paths and shapes and isn't necessarily a realistic scenario. Thanks for your help, you cleared up the initial situation and answered my other technical questions.