Pocket Clearing, inside out vs outside in

[DarthBane55]

Hi, see the picture below.  If you have a flat face without walls, it will machine from the outside towards the inside of the face.  If you have a wall, as shown on picture, it will start from inside and machine towards the outside.  This might be good in most cases, but sometimes it is not.  In this case, the setup is not very rigid, and the cosmetics is important...  when starting from the inside as shown, the helix leaves some marks in the middle of the part.  It pushes the material ever so slightly (there is nothing underneath the part).  To fix that we always start from the outside, and machine towards the inside.

I cannot find any way to accomplish that in Fusion.  I tried all cycles there is, all sorts of picking, various stocks, select a profile or dont select a profile, nothing will do it.  There is even an option in the lead-in section to say "plunge outside of stock", but this generates no toolpath, saying it would cause a collision...  

If someone knows a way (well, I can accomplish it, but it required making extra geometry, and I'm trying to automate programming of this as much as possible) without creating additional geometry, please explain!

To Fusion: could you not add an option to let us choose which direction we'd like to use (inside-out, outside in)?  I think it would solve so many problems I have with doing something so simple as this task.

Thanks for the help!

[engineguy]

@DarthBane55 

Forgive me if this seems a bit silly but don`t we already have an "Outside ~ in"  (ie "Open Pocket") toolpath that automatically starts outside the stock ??

Would the 2D adaptive not do it ?  Seems to work OK here, it does appear to be what you are asking the software to do, cutting from the outside ~ in 🙂 🙂 🙂

Other softwares I have used that have open pockets from the outside ~ in also call them "adaptive" toolpaths.

Regards

Rob

[DarthBane55]

@engineguy 

Ya if there is no wall there are many ways to do this.  But looks at the 1st post and look at the picture, and adaptive won't work if you try that.

[engineguy]

@DarthBane55 

Works fine here without any walls,  not sure just how you are trying to do it but I assume you are using a Sketch as there are no walls/solids to select from, here is my example just using a Sketch, toolpath is good and stock is set slightly higher than the model so that there is something to see being cut in the simulation, in reality I would have just set the Bottom height to the depth I wanted to cut frfom the Stock sheet.

My apologies but I don`t see why you are having such an issue with "Open Pockets", this is pretty much an "industry Standard" toolpathing strategy ???

Regards

Rob

[DarthBane55]

I guess i dont have an industry standard part.  I need a outside to inside pattern, not adaptive.  Cosmetics reason among other consideration.  Why are you against the idea of deciding for a pocketing pattern if we can choose which way we want the path to go?  I could draw a straight line and use 2dcontour too, but that is not the goal.  It seems "industry standards" to me to have the choice between outside-in or inside-out in a pocket pattern, at least it was an option in all the CAM softwares I used so far, all the way back to Smartcam.

Also, if you read all the way to this point, I said look at the initial post, and you will see on the picture there is a wall, pretty hard to miss.

[engineguy]

@DarthBane55 

I am not "against" anything, Fusion just does doing an "Outside~In" differently, and the terminology is somewhat at fault to be fair, maybe they should be calling it "Open Pocketing" which would make more sense to me anyway, normally the options for Pocketing usually go:-

1) Pocket "Inside~Out" which is pretty much a standard pocket starting somewhere near the centre,

2) Pocket "Outside~In" which works from the outside edge inwards but is still inside the pocket.

3) Pocket "Open" type where the toolpath starts outside the stock and works inwards

Here are a few images from a different software that I have on this computer, unfortunately the others are on computers at my workshop but all are similar in operation, just different approaches that`s all.

The last and next to last images are Fusion doing exactly what you keep asking for, basically a toolpath that looks like a stepped in Contour that follows the shape but is in fact done using the 2D Pocket strategy, the reason that I usually use the 2D Adaptive is the much better tool contact but if the 2D Pocket is what you prefer to use then please by all means use it 🙂 🙂

Hope this helps a little 🙂 🙂 🙂

Regards

Rob

[engineguy]

@DarthBane55 

My apologies, I forgot to add that it does work with or without a wall/walls, image below.

Regards

Rob

[DarthBane55]

For your viewing pleasure, since you don't seem to see/understand what I am after, I am putting the 1st picture back here, and this is what I am after, except it needs to go from the outside-in instead of inside-out.  Nothing else will do for this particular case.  None of what you showed does this, and the reason is that this option does not exist.   You are missing the point of the post, please, go back and read the initial post, you will understand what is needed, and this plainly does not exist out of the box in Fusion.  Don't worry about telling me to "do this instead", I'm not searching for an alternative, this post is about a missing option.  BTW I did find a way to do what I need, but it requires drawing a surface and cheating a bit, but it works.  No alternatives please, I already got that.

[engineguy]

@DarthBane55 

I do understand what you are asking for and I have read everything on this thread but your own limitations make it impossible to create, you say the main thing you want is an equally spaced toolpath that gives you good consistant tool contact working from the outside in, that would be nice I agree but if the toolpath in your image were to be simply reversed so it started outside then you would have to do multiple depths or risk tool/part damage as the first pass would include a full width cut along the wall shape with your tool, the Scallop and Morphed Spiral as posted earlier have the nice toolpaths you would probably like but again you would have a full width cut which is what you say you don`t want/can`t have for your job.

Do I have that correct? As far as I can tell the only toolpath that will give you some sort of nicely shaped consistant tool engagement toolpath would be an Adaptive one.

Your other Criteria you stated was not to have to create any extra geometry etc, now you are saying that is what you have done, again an Adaptive toolpath would avoid that chore as well.

If there is some way to avoid the full width of tool cut without using an Adaptive toolpath then please do share it with the Community as it would be a huge asset to many I am sure.

Please, I do understand and I am 100% with you on what would be a great thing if it could be done but right now I don`t see any way of doing the clearing with a Pocket strategy without doing a full width tool cut on the first pass if there is a wall present, no matter which direction it goes if from outside~in then at some point it has to cross from one side of the solid to the other necessitating a full width cut, certainly you can do a "workaround" with sketch/surface etc but it always comes back to the full width cut problem unfortunately for us all 😞 😞

Regards

Rob

[whizbanger]

Guys, I didn't want to hijack this thread with my requirements for a similar, but not exactly the same, 'outside-in' function for a 3D Pocket TP, so I started a separate thread.  Good luck here, you both inspired me.

[DarthBane55]

@engineguy 

Ok, so now I know you understand what I need.  And I re-read my own post from 2016 (this is a very old thread), and I didn't see anywhere an issue with the full cut, I might have missed it, but I didn't see any reference saying I didn't want a full cut.  Don't forget, this is a finish pass, there is only 0.010" to remove on the floor, so a full cut near the wall is fine, it does not cause a problem.  The problem was generated when ramping down in the middle of the part, because it is not a super rigid setup, ramping from the middle makes some marks than we then have to polish out.  The outside is more rigid as it is it very close to the clamps, and we can ramp on the outside with a straight line without creating marks on the face (we don't have to ramp, we could start outside the part and plunge, which would be preferable, but it cannot be done it seems, without the help of a nifty sketch to fake a bulge on the outside and force the part to start from that.  I could do that but the ramping skips a sketch and works fine in this case).

The adaptive will face this, yes, but not in a way that is acceptable for the cosmetics requirements.  Because of the back wall, it won't do a "outside-in" way of facing as if it were an opened face.

And as you said, I may appear to contradict myself, by saying that I don't want to construct geometry, and I ended up doing just that...  but that's why this thread started!  I don't want to construct geometry, but I have to, in order to do exactly what I want.  If the pocketing operation had the option to choose between "outside-in" or "inside-out", then it would do exactly what I want, without the need to construct any additional geometry.  This is what started the thread really.  And as you said, my own requirements make this impossible (in Fusion) to do.  Which is why, I created the IDEA, which you might still be able to vote for, I didn't check if it was still alive... hehe, but most people who participated in this thread ended up voting for it, because it is something missing.

I do have my work around, and it does do exactly what I need, but it requires making geometry, which could easily be avoided with this option.  This is all this is about.

I appreciate you trying to help though, you got me going a bit with your comments such as "this is industry standards" and such... I'm not going after "industry standards", and nobody needs to tell me what is "industry standard", I've been in the game for a while, I know what my needs are...  and comments like this usually get me revved up quickly, so I apologize if I seemed rude at times while you were trying to help, you just happened to successfully push the wrong buttons on me! haha.  Anyways, all good, thanks for your efforts and trying to help me.  I have what I need, short of this option still not being an option...  😲

[harunV2DKQ]

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