[photomankc]

So I'm starting to come to grips with the SprutCAM way but I still run into a few surprises and maybe terminology issues. On a recent part I ran a finishing waterline to get an easy cleanup of the outside and inside of the part. It's really a 2.5D part but the waterline ops are nice in my opinion to just get the thing roughed out with less ops if a little less efficient. The roughing waterline has options for Z plunge to spiral in and slow down for the plunge. The finish waterline seems to be lacking those. Last night I got close to disaster when it jammed a 1/4" 4 flute into a hole that my roughing cutter couldn't get into on the previous op. It fed in at the work rate of like 20IPM and welded up one flute nicely. Lucky for me that was the last movement it made and the other flutes took care of things but it was clear from the sounds that it was quite an unpleasant event for the mill.


So is there one of the feed-rate settings in the operation that would apply to Z transitions to the next level? I thought maybe "Next" or "Approach" but it's not terribly clear from the diagrams if it would. I was also thinking that perhaps the Finish Waterline expects it's Z path to be relatively clear and I would need to switch to the smaller cutter for roughing the part out so it could rough down into those shallow holes.

[popspipes]

under feeds and speeds there is a box that has several options, work feed is usually displayed, change that to approach feed and change the percentage to your liking. I use this often. It will work in waterline ops to slow the plunge to a percentage of the work feed.

I do use sprut 7 but that option should be in later versions as well.

[photomankc]

Perfect, I thought that might be it but it wasn't clear from the description that would apply to a plunge.

[pickled]

Yeah that "Next" and "Approach" arrow box sure doesn't give you a good visual. As Popspipes indicated you will slow that plunge right down if you adjust that approach parameter. It works for the complex rest milling and other finishing/rest operations that way as well. If you haven't used those yet they are pretty slick. I am also still working in 7, but I'm assuming that they are still all available in 9.