Should total tolerance (tolerance+smoothing) be set to the machine's precision ?
I'd say the ops tolerance is not related to the machine accuracy. What are you machining and what ops are you using smoothing in? A lot of 2d ops will only use smoothing for splines or in 2d adaptive clearing where the total tolerance wants to be less then the stock to leave (adaptive clearing). Really the tolerance in the op will depend on what tollereces the job requires.
If you test out just creating a rectangle with filleted corners and create a 2d profile it will post out at the max accuracy the post is set to, don't think the tolerance in the op makes any difference. If the profile is just lines and arcs the smoothing shouldn't have any effect, but I have occasionally seen smoothing mess up small details.
Mark Hughes
Owner, Hughes Tooling
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Tolerance and Smoothing do go hand-in-hand, but as for pairing them to machine accuracy, that's not something I would encourage. If one has a very accurate machine and sets their tolerance and smoothing (across all possible toolpaths), the end result (while quite accurate) is going to be agonizingly long for calculation. Of course, this also depends on the sort of work being done: general surfacing or mold work have vastly different requirements.
Seth Madore
Customer Advocacy Manager - Manufacturing
There used to be a problem with 2d profile cutting on the outside of splines. Not sure it that's been fixed but it was only a problem using in computer compensation. The toolpath was created by offsetting the linearised curve but also adding corner rounding so you ended up with a short line then an arc then another short line, all the switching between lines and arc tended to cause problems on the machine.
Can you share an example of a design where you're getting stuttering? Try using in control compensation, don't forget to setup the tool table on your machine to match the cutters.
Mark Hughes
Owner, Hughes Tooling
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@chrisQX8DX wrote:
But i'm mostly doing 3d organic shapes from both sides.
Something else to note is arc fitting tends to only work well on 3d contour and Parallel. Any movement in all 3 axis will stop arc fitting so although it can work with scallop any areas where the path is not parallel to the XY will not arc fit so you might not want to use it as it increases toolpath generation time.
Mark Hughes
Owner, Hughes Tooling
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