Machining Bowl and Slot

[mkraushaar]

Hello all! Working on an ashtray for a friend and was very pleased with how far I was able to get in about 3 hours yesterday, all the way to a rough finished part. With that being said I've spent the better part of the day trying to solve a few key details, and have been largely unsuccessful. 

1. I'm having considerable trouble with the "bowl." 
   1. I cannot for the life of me figure out a finishing pass that produces a nice finish, either concentric or spiral. The current Adaptive and Contour passes look like they want to avoid parts closest to the walls, though in reality it machines relatively straight, just wastes a fair bit of movement picking up and setting down. I had a difficult time actively selecting the appropriate geometry and settled on telling fusion to "Avoid/Touch" touch the bowl geometry.
   2. The contour pass I was using a finish seems to leave a little ramp at the bottom.
   3. Either the contour pass for the bowl or for the trough wants to cut a fillet into the edge of the bowl and the trough, where I'd like them to be straight up.
2. The Trough
   1. Similair issues, to the bowl, the toolpaths want to pick up and avoid the outside edge of the trough, though it seems unnecssary
   2. The tool also doesn't clean up the bottom of the arc of the trough, leaving it an ellipses rather than an arc.
   3. Like the bowl, the tool wants to fillet the upper edge of the trough and bowl.
   4. There is a slight notch as the trough transitions into the bowl that I can't solve
3. The adaptive pass meant to face the inside face of the tray leaves about a radius inside the corners of of the raised lips, as well as a slight lip leading up to the outer ridge.
4. There is some text, THUD., that machined correctly on our Tormach, but didn't show correctly in fusion. I'm having a hard time figuring out if it's something wrong with the tool setup or the toolpath, despite the end result being nice.

I'll attach some photos of the finished outcome, but really appreciate anyone's help here on this little doozie. Thank you!

[johnswetz1982]

Adaptive is a roughing strategy meant to be followed up with a finish operation such as [Parallel] or [Spiral] or [Circular].

[a.laasW8M6T]

So the roughing you had got the job done, I tidied things up and played with the tool paths a bit to get better results/faster cycle times(watch that 1/4" endmill its going much faster now), I also used a 2d contour to clean up the top pocket/step(Adaptive isn't a finishing toolpath -Roughing only), you will be left with a 1/8" rad in the corners, you cant make sharp corners like that with a mill.

For finishing I used 2 Scallop toolpaths, the first with a coarse stepover and some stock to leave, this is a semi-finishing toolpath. the second finishes the part to size

I have contained the toolpath with boundaries and used the "Contact point boundary" checkbox and an additional offset of -0.01mm. this provides a nice neat toolpath that covers all the curvature evenly.

As you noticed Contour work well in the steeper areas but not the shallow, this is because its a "Z level" or "Waterline" tool path where the step down is in Z only.

As for the engraving, adaptive isn't really a very good toolpath for that, I just extruded the sketch down into the part and ran a parallel toolpath with perpendicular passes checked.

I never really engrave stuff like this its normally a single line font or a much larger logo/Font haha.

Anyway, have a look at what I've done, it may give you some ideas.

[loudonbendall]

I sort of went overboard on this but I really hope this helps. It's a long recording but I walk through the entire process and my reasoning behind most operations. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Here's the Screencast