I don't think my previous message was delivered to the group due to the file attachments. I've zipped them together an am trying again. ============================================= Fred Lauzus, CAM Programming Coordinator High Steel Structures, Incorporated mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.highsteel.com <http://www.highsteel.com/> =============================================
-----Original Message----- From: Lauzus, Frederick Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 10:47 AM To: 'Jon Baker'; 'SmartCAM List Server' Subject: RE: [mfg-smartcam] tapered layers for material There is no "perfect" solution for the creation of unusually shaped stock in Show Cut. It's a shame they never ported the capability to do a spun solid in turning to milling. Two of the workarounds mentioned were rotating copies of a planar cross section and cutting the part with a form tool. If you do cut your "stock" with a form tool, to save time you can save the cut solid to file and re-load it in the cut state when you run a Show Cut. This does require you to load the file each time, and these files tend to be quite large. On a side note, you can save a turned part from a Show Cut in turning and use it as stock in a Show Cut in milling. The major drawback is that it is loaded in the turning orientation with the Z axis concentric with the turned diameter. This might require the definition of an additional work plane to get the proper tool orientation. A lot of work just for a Show Cut. Another option is to define your stock shape as a planar mesh of closed profiles. This allows you to define just about any odd shape using the Create - Mesh tools in Advanced Production Milling and FreeForm Machining. The spacing between the profiles controls the coarseness of the solid. For clarity the profile top of each profile should be set separately to extend only to the next profile (see attached file "JonBlank3.pm4"). This can be a daunting process so naturally I have a macro do it (see attached file "PTopStacker.mcl"). I originally created this macro to modify the profile top of toolpath created by the roughing processes to reduce "air cutting" while plunging to increasingly lower Z levels. It just happens to work well with layer profiles for Show Cut. ============================================= Fred Lauzus, CAM Programming Coordinator High Steel Structures, Incorporated mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.highsteel.com <http://www.highsteel.com/> ============================================= -----Original Message----- From: Jon Baker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 11:31 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [mfg-smartcam] tapered layers for material I want to create a material layer for use in show cut that is tapered. The first operation is on a lathe, and turns the part to a 15.5 degree included angle, starting at 1.0 inch dia, extending 2. inches along, then straightening out. Is there anyway of creating this for showcut material? Thanks Jon
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