Frank Ricci wrote:
> Nice Job! > How did you do it? > Frank Thanks! First, create your profile. Any closed profile will do. Locate a central point to create your helix. Use Create, Curves, Helix to create a helix that has an axis length of -.250" (or however much you wish to feed down each revolution). Make your downfeed evenly divisible into the total depth you will be cutting. Make the start and end radius the same, and large enough to cover your entire profile. The Start Angle and End Angle should pass through the start and end point of the closed profile. Make a second helix with the same center and start and end angles Make the start and end radii about .250". Group the helixes and Edit, Explode them into polylines using a tolerance of .0001". Use Geometry, Wall Offset to create offset profiles for roughing and finishing. You must use cutter center profiles with no tool offset. Left and Right offsets will not work. Clear the group and group one of the closed profiles. Use Edit, Mesh Edit, Project to project the grouped profile onto the mesh which consists of the two helical polylines. The resulting projection will look funny. The start of the projected profile will be deep and abruptly rise to the shallow depth. Then it will follow the helix down and around. You'll have to fix this. SmartCam gets it wrong. Use Geo Edit, Modify to modify the first element of the projected profile. Change the Z value of the first point to the intended Z start level (same as the start level of the helix). Delete the second point, which was a duplicate of the first. Now clear the group and group the projected profile. Use Macro, Execute and select the C:\SM11\SHARED\SYSMCL\grthin.mcl. Enter .0002 as the value for VMT. This will eliminate some of the points within the polylines of the profile. Now use Edit, Transform, Move to copy the profile down your chosen increment enough times to take it to the final depth. Add 1 copy if you want a clean-up pass. Group just the last pass and use Edit, Property Change, Toolpath to set the Z level of the last pass to the final depth. If you have done everything right, the entire toolpath, top to bottom, plus the clean-up pass, will be a single profile. Repeat the process for each of the offset profiles you created for roughing and finishing. It's a lengthy process which uses a few tricks, but when you have a job to do that just can't be done any other way, ..... I do a lot of programming for clients who have their own programmers, but come up with these devilish situations that can't be done by normal means. Let me know how you make out. Gene Bowen SMARTCO ====================================================================== To find out more about this mailing list including how to unsubscribe, send the message "info mfg-smartcam" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ======================================================================
