Contour doing multiple Lead-ins and behaving differently for same piece in model vs exported piece

[allister_mcrae]

The contour milling operation appears to be doing some different things depending on whether a model is on its own or as part of another model.

In one case, using contour and no contact point creates a model with a bunch of lead-ins and outs at 90 degree locations from each other - even though they are at the same bevel/angle/round as most of the body.  There are also a bunch of lead-ins and outs where the round dives into corners.

in the second case, when the part was exported to its own file, it only zips across the top of the part when contact point boundary is off.  And when it is on, it mills things but appears to do lead-ins into the part as well as outside the part.  There are still also a bunch of extra moves.

I did a second attempt at contour with contact points in the original model to ensure I was using defaults - the first one missed an entire face in it's calculations.

I have included the exported piece. I don't wish to give away the full file from which it was exported.

I have tried Ramp and it seemed to work ok.  But from what I picked up in the Autodesk Using 3D Contour And Ramp Toolpaths video, contour is probably the better choice.

Getting past the inital frustration of figuring out having to select "model" to grab faces got rid of some initial "why are there about 1000 lead-ins and lead-outs?!"  But this one is a really good challenge 🙂

Any insight into the issue here or whether I should be trying a different tool is appreciated.

No Contour on exported partOriginal model along with all piecesExported file contact points on.Exported part lead-ins diving into part in multiple places. Extra moves everywhere.Contact points off. Note how its leaving the corners and climbing over the the "sides"

Original Model file, second time attempted contour to make sure it was all defaults - at least it caught all the faces selected this time...

[seth.madore]

In my opinion, one of the easiest ways to program a 3D Contour would be to use Touch/Avoid faces:

 Result:

 

I don't like where it's deciding to do the Lead-In move, but that's something I'm going to have to run by the developers, as I know there are some issues with Start Point in several of the toolpaths (I think this is still one of them)

[engineguy]

@allister_mcrae 

Just for interest I found that the "Blend" toolpath seems to work reasonably well, able to easily select the faces for the "Drive Surfaces" and the top and bottom selected as the "Drive Curves". It just does one small move across from one side to the other but that`s all and it doesn`t seem to be a problem, it "transitions" at the corners which might be a good thing or not but doesnt seem to change feedrate !!

Anyway, see the attached file for a rough example of how the job could be done, set the stepover to suit the finish you need  🙂 🙂 🙂

[allister_mcrae]

Thanks @engineguy , you've taught me something new here 🙂 I'm going to have to experiment more with Blend. I'm going to have to see how the differences in stepdown in Contour vs stepover in Blend affect different shapes.

Thanks for taking some time to show me this and get back to me!

[allister_mcrae]

Hi @seth.madore ,

This is great.  I didn't see that "Touch Surfaces" feature.  This looks like a simple way to do it.  It's a 12:47 machine time vs the Blend that @engineguy has suggested - stepdown and stepover set to 0.04 respectively in each milling method.  Maybe because of a few extra moves?

Thanks so much!