Hello all
Can any of you great people help me with some 4th axis fluting.
i wish to machine the flute in the attached file in a 4th axis preferably with a flat end mill not a ball endmill, in order to keep the flute shape as close to the model as possible, no matter what i try i can not get a sensible tool path, the tool path always want to use the end of the cutter not the side, any help you guys and gals can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks
Steve
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@Anonymous wrote:Hello all
Can any of you great people help me with some 4th axis fluting.
i wish to machine the flute in the attached file in a 4th axis preferably with a flat end mill not a ball endmill, in order to keep the flute shape as close to the model as possible, no matter what i try i can not get a sensible tool path, the tool path always want to use the end of the cutter not the side, any help you guys and gals can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks
Steve
You cannot drive flat end mill in wrap mode because slot starts on one diameter and ends on another diameter but you can only wrap tool path on single diameter. Ball end mill gets most of the job done and then you can drive small size end mill along vertical wall in wrap mode to remove fillet.
I used taper mill, otherwise it does not capture entire wall due to the fact that end mill points to model center and cannot be tilted when tool path is wrapped.
No matter how you slice it, with 4th axis, you will have fillets and areas tool cannot fully define but I think this is as close as I can get without making career out of it.
Little more attention given to removal of ball end mill fillet. Adaptive tool path has a lot of air cutting over area that is not being cut and I am not sure if there is a way to prevent that, if I missed it, or if thee is a better choice of tool path, I'd like to see it done by someone else.
Honestly, you got further than I would have attempted, I don't think there's much improvement to be had. Fusion is good at some things, and.....not so good at others. This would be one of them. With a 5 axis, you might be able to get further, easier. But not on a 4 axis machine
OK, I'll buy that, the thing that interests me in 4th axis is fact that I do a lot of C axis work on lathe and the function is essentially the same so I want to find limits of what can be done.
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