Milling cutter only cuts air

[r.moss]

I am trying to set up end mill operations to make this vane ring (about 60mm diameter):

The stock has been turned and centre-drilled already:

There will be 4 operations:

• drill 4-off 13mm holes to rapidly remove some of the material

• rough out the four passages using an 8mm end mill
• use a 6mm end mill to get tighter passage corners
• use a 6mm ball-nose cutter to chamfer the top edges

When I simulate the operations, the drilling seems OK but then the adaptive clearing cut only re-makes the 13mm holes, which are already drilled, and does not profile the passages at all.  It seems that it is making the stock not the finished item.

- but the setup shows the correct (final) body, so I don't know what has gone wrong:

The model is here: https://a360.co/3N7r91v 

[seth.madore]

Couple of things to start off the discussion:

1) You say that the part has already been turned and drilled thru the center. Why then do you have "Relative Size Box" and Relative Size Cylinder" as your stock definitions? You already have the Stock Model that shows the state that the part is in before milling, you should be using that as your Stock.

2) Is there a particular reason you've broken this up into multiple Setups?

As it sits, your Adaptive toolpath has no knowledge that the holes exist, as there's nothing in the Setup or the toolpath "Rest" settings that would give them that understanding.

[r.moss]

Hi Seth

Thank you very much.  I am learning this as I go along - multiple setups seemed the obvious way of doing it.  Actually it took an hour of my time, playing with every possible option, just to get the stock sitting flat on the bed rather than lying on its side; I was glad enough to find a combination that seemed to work!  This is a perennial problem.  I still have the milling machine lying on its side in the default view with TOP upwards, but I may have to live with that.

Thinking about your suggestions, I have now tried setting the first setup with stock "From solid" and the second as "From preceding setup".  What I think I failed to realise is that the simulation view is misleading - it shows you whichever bodies are currently visible in the Model tree, NOT the bodies that you have selected for the machining operation.   Arghh!  So for my second setup it was showing me the finished part, but that wasn't what it was trying to make.

I went back to the edit tab for the second setup and re-selected the body, from the browser tree, to be the final version.  Now the simulation cuts it properly.  Unfortunately it is warning of a couple of  "Rapid collision with stock" events in the simulation time line at this point:

It doesn't look like a collision to me.

The new file is here: https://a360.co/3N7r91v 

[r.moss]

I think it is mostly working now but I just changed a fillet radius setting for the 6mm endmill (trying to get less grooving in the final ball-cut fillets) and now it is saying "Internal CAM kernel error" - please report via your support channel.

File is here: https://a360.co/3N7r91v 

[seth.madore]

Hmm. I'm not seeing that in your file. Which toolpath and Setup?

As for the question about Multiple Setups; is the reason you've gone this route is because you don't have a tool changer? What is your actual machine and controller?

[r.moss]

You need version 7 of the file, here: https://a360.co/3N7r91v 

It's an EMCO Concept 260 with Siemens controller.  Yes, it has a tool changer. 

I didn't realise it might be better to have multiple operations in one setup.  Also, the drilling operation identifies holes in the stock (so the milling cutter does not have to plunge through solid) so it uses a different model body to the subsequent ones, which take the final body form.  The body is selected in the initial setup stage rather than per operation - I don't know if there is any way of defining the drilling in the same setup as the milling.  I've tried copying and pasting the milling ops to bring them into one setup.

I had to turn on "In-process automatic stock detection" to avoid the missing stock warnings.

Now I have all 4 operations in one setup:

hole drilling

• T4 adaptive clearing with 8mm cutter
• T5 (contour) sharper internal corners with 6mm cutter
• T6 (contour) top chamfer with 6mm ball-nose cutter.

T4 works.

T5 just cuts air:

T6 does not chamfer the top properly and gives numerous "rapid collision with stock" warnings.

I managed to avoid these problems when I had multiple setups but I'm not sure how to fix them in a single setup.

Single-setup file is v.11:  https://a360.co/3N7r91v 

(Actually, that is the same URL as the v.7 with the kernel problem.  Do I need to upload f3z files?)

[r.moss]

I am attaching the .f3z files!

[seth.madore]

Your first 3D Contour isn't doing anything in terms of material removal. I'd actually favor a 2D Contour to handle this task:

 

If you're looking to finish off the leading edges of those fins, I'd likely suggest another toolpath, such as Scallop, and use Touch/Avoid to constrain it to select areas.