3D Adaptive Clearing Woes

[Anonymous]

Currently working on a project making tube chassis assembly jigs out of .5" MDF, where the jigs are slotted at angles to alight tubes precisely. The basic thinking was to index the part with four centered pins, run 3D adaptive clearing on one side, flip the part and then do the same on the other side. Machine is a 30x30" homebuilt 3 axis cnc router.

This strategy does work, but has been taking about an hour per side to run and I have 14 parts. Any advice on how to decrease cycle time, or use roughing operations to speed things up would be super helpful. Been trying to find a faster way to run them for far too many hours now. Thinking maybe an agressive 3D roughing strategy with ball nose to finish it after might be faster, but cant seem to set that up and am pretty new to fusion

[lee_sanders]

Hi @Anonymous 

This a tricky question to answer correctly without knowing your machine and setup.

One way to save time is to use a larger, if that's possible, using the 6.35mm tool in 25.4 slots is making the tool path segments quite long, if you could use a 12mm (+) tool, that would reduce the travel distance, therefore, making it quicker.   

If you are restricted by the tool diameter (6.35mm), then the only other options are increasing stepover, stepdown, surface feed rate, this all depending on your machine and setup.

sorry I can't help you more, good luck

Lee 

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the reply @lee_sanders, My machine can definitely handle a 12mm* bit but the issue is that the slots are mostly angled in the Z plane, so the cross sectional area is relatively small when viewed from above. I am able to cut at up to 4000m/min and can take a large stepover, but a large amount of time is being wasted with the tool retracting and then doing a series of very small cuts in order to get accurate slope angles on the slots. 

What settings would you recommend if the goal was to try and do a roughing pass with deep (can be full depth) stepdown and stepover, and then a second op to make those angled sections be fairly dimensionally accurate? Right now I am trying to do both with the single 3D path which I am unsure of.

[lee_sanders]

Hi @Anonymous 

it may be worth splitting the tool path to make the strategies more efficient, something like this,

Using the larger tool wherever possible, it may also be easier to push the tool in these area's

I hope this helps

please let me know if you want this example tool path?

Lee

[Anonymous]

Thanks @lee_sanders that looks exactly like what I was trying to make, but being newer to fusion wasn't sure how to work that toolpath containment into the design. I'm an engineering student working with an educational license of Fusion, so don't have access to the toolpath trimming feature, not sure if that is how you achieved that but would love access to the path you created there. 

Thanks again, and appreciate any further tips.

[lee_sanders · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous 

The tool path is generated with no edits required.

I hope this helps.

Regards

Lee