Ok so I am kind of happy but does anyone have a better way?

[boyd.sofield]

I have spent ages on this and the result was kind of ok. I do need to make a bunch of these though. The hardest parts were the lower radius - that took ages. Also keeping the tool down and not rising to move to another small cut so many times. The horizontal slots for example had the Z going through each one, rising 50mm, and lowering again before going straight ahead again.

The lower part of the radius was not very good though on the final production run leaving a spike in the centre which I missed during my simulation.

But, hey, if anyone has nothing better to do. I would like to hear some criticism on how I could cut these parts out better? Have I posted in the correct place? I have attached the file if anyone is interested. If not, no probs I will continue bashing my way through ha

[boyd.sofield]

Sorry - attached now.

[Anonymous]

There is no such thing as absolute perfection, therefore, no matter what the objective is, there is always a better way, one that reaches higher level of sophistication, function, efficiency ..... etc.

Although I am not going to put my time into "perfecting" your work, I did notice two crashes you may want to pay attention to before making any chips.

[boyd.sofield]

Thanks for that. I dont know about you but I get to a point where I just stop and machine out my parts unless its really important they are to a standard. You have reminded me to update my tool library and stop using the sample library as much as I do. The tools wont crash but I am still only about 80% I reckon. I wonder how long a trained CNC machinist would take to program this.

[Anonymous]

The idea behind simulating program in Fusion is to discover any mishaps that can cause crashes. Setup, tool definition and all related parameters need to be in sink with actual setup and tooling used to machine the part.

If you leave this step out and then "carefully" check your program at the machine you are doing it backwards and asking for trouble.

It depends on individual's confidence level, you can skip some things because you know they are already accounted for and what I mean by that is simply the fact that you don't need to punch 2+2 into calculator to confirm that result equals 4,........... but as things get more complicated and drift out of focus, you need simple way to visually confirm that all is in order before moving to the next step.

[daniel_lyall]

I only thing I would change is the hights for the small part if the cut stays within the border of the small part and does not move to the tall part it should be fine.

The adaptive toolpath changes the fine stepdown to be the same as the maximum roughing step down. 

[boyd.sofield]

Oh my apologies did I appear to say I don't simulate my work prior to machining? I definitely do that. Along with the fact I also know the length of my tools including the wasted section of the shaft so it wont crash.

I do spend a lot of time getting it all correct. But get to a point where I cant look at a screen any more. Or a point where I have tried everything I can to perfect a part and just give in wondering just how bad it will look once machined.

Dont get me wrong, I am not a "lets see if something breaks" kind of person at all.

I have learned one thing though. And thats that there is always a better way. And that the better way can come from anyone. My motivation for this post, was to see if there was anyone who could be bothered, to show me how "they" would have cut this part out. I would have been really interested to compare. Regards

[boyd.sofield]

That was a biggy actually. I was wondering about that one too. Looks ok on the sim though

[Anonymous]

I see an awful lot of energy going into defending your "standard ways", implying things ....., but, I just wanted to tell you, ........... you missed two crashes.

When you offer something for public scrutiny, you are not only going to get what you want, you are going to get what you get because nobody is bound by your imaginary rules on subject of what they may or may not observe.

What would be the point in me telling you how I would do it but ignore the same two crashes you missed?

I definitely need new crystal ball because my old one can never accurately read minds and alert me not to bring up some direct or indirect observation that OP finds offensive, disrespectful or in some way implying incompetence, or God forbid, lock of experience or inability to do rational thing in some logical way ......... contradicting his or her own action evident in submitted file or body of text.

[boyd.sofield]

Oh dear. Did I not thank you enough for your input? Do you need a hug or something? And I cant believe I am bothering to write this.

Now, I did say that I had been lazy and used the sample tool library. And in that library the tools would have crashed. But, my own planning made sure that none of my tools were going to crash like any of your examples. They are longer, and have a wasted section which the simulation would not have seen, nor you, and I obviously didn't explain that enough, although I did think I wrote that.

I felt I should defend myself against the implication I didn't simulate though because that was utter rubbish.

No, I am not just looking for people to say the things I want to hear - that's boring. As is now this conversation. It was a mistake engaging in this I had no intention of back and forth swinging of dicks.

Constructive and challenging conversations are healthy. If someone had said, "Dude, that's an awful strategy try this out" I would have loved to read about it. That, was the purpose of my post. And I wont bother posting here again unless I really need too. I am sure you have a lot of good information to give out, but I don't need it.

[Anonymous]

So you are saying that crashes I saw in your file, never occurred on your end, that's odd because I think file is what it is and backplot reflects actions and tools as they are defined in that file.

I could be wrong about that but it seems I definitely need that new crystal ball, still, my old one is on the mark in terms of predicting where this interaction is heading, I noticed you spiced up the vocabulary and I am not in need of a hug so let's call it a day.

[daniel_lyall]

Your replies are base on the data you supply, you give a file over with crashes in it you will get told about it remember we are all here to help, and most of us do not know you so we have no way to know what a user knows.

[boyd.sofield]

Thankyou. Yes. And I was looking for constructive intelligent criticism. Being challenged on how we do things is what makes a collaborative and powerful community.

Just a shame what I did get was a lecture about simulating, the importance and the benefits. Not exactly well thought out because it was irrelevant,  and of no use to me. Like, who doesn't simulate? I did put my hand up and say I was being lazy, using the tools out of the library instead of my own ones that would not crash. But that was not good enough.

So yes, I pushed back. I think its great there is now the online gateway for our elderly with their gnarly hips to hop on their digital soapboxes to preach. Especially when in the actual world nobody is listening to them anymore. So lets all applause to that. As for me, its Sunday, I am going to go biking with my kids.

[daniel_lyall]

@boyd.sofield All your points are valid but there are a lot of hobby people using fusion, so you will get extra stuff said about in one of your posts, now did you try what I said about or do you want an example.  

[boyd.sofield]

Hi Daniel.

Thanks. And thanks. Yes, your point about the heights was an interesting one that had also occurred to me. I actually watched very carefully on that one even when machining out the part. I am trying to improve machining times due to the lack of a ATC spindle. So there are often multiple heights throughout. 

Re the stepdown on the adaptive was that directed at improving the finish pass? My machine is not good at finishing, a job I need to resolve with some more strengthening and rigidity. On projects like this I clean everything up with a full depth contour with an extra long CEL bit I have here on one of the very last operations. So I don't pay much attention to the adaptive except for trying to get the most efficient material removal as I can. Is that what you meant?

As for the part I cut a few of them out over the weekend. Am stoked actually at the result. They are for positioning devices in a hospital operating theatre. I plan to get them anodized and will be demonstrating them in the next week or so. Regards

[daniel_lyall]

When ever I use adaptive I just come back and do a finishing op, so I set both heights in the adaptive to the same hight and where I can I adjust the tool path heights.