How to minimize milling area

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

I am milling multiple parts out of one stock. 

At the moment the tool is plunging down outside my part and than goes into the part. Because of that it removes unnecessarily amounts of material outside my actual part. Because of that I have to make the distance between the parts unnecessarily big.

Does anybody knows how to keep the toolpath as tight together as possible? I rather want it to plunge right in the part and just mill where there is material to be removed.

I attached two pictures to explain the problem (the text is unfortunately in german..)

Any help is appreciated.

Sören

[s.noke71]

Have you tried 2d pocket and ramping into the part, change boundary to inside 

[paul.clauss · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous 

Thanks for posting! Is this a 2D Pocket toolpath? If so, I think this is an issue with face versus contour selection.

Selecting the face of the pocket will create an open contour that will cut out to the edge of the stock defined in the setup.

Selecting the edge of the pocket should force the toolpath to plunge inside of its area:

I hope this helps! I'm happy to have a look at your file if difficulties continue.

[s.noke71]

Love the great Gliff Paul, how do you do that, and post it?

[Anonymous]

Great! That made the trick (see attached picture)! Thank you so much, also for the very good screen cast.

This also solves a problem with the pocket milling I had in another model... 

Thanks!

[paul.clauss]

Hi @Anonymous 

Thanks - I use LiceCap and insert the GIF file as a "Photo" to the forums. I believe there is a size limit to upload to the forum but never hit it.