CamWorks - Feature that will go back and get the missed areas?

I'm trying to cut down on cutting time and am hoping there is a feature that I'm yet to be able to workout

Just say for example you were cutting a star with some weird shaped islands and you wanted to bulk the middle out and then use a smaller cutter to go back and get into the tips and areas the large cutter missed, is there a feature that will do this?

At the moment I've been adding extra mill part programs using contour and open profile type commands but this seems stupid and it also takes unnecessary time and still has lots of air cutting.

Some detailed jobs I do can take three or four hours for something that could take only half an hour if I could find a feature that did this.

Thanks in advance

There are a few ways to do this depending on what your part actually looks like. You could do it with a multiaxis mill operation and use the pencil mill option (check the manual to explain what pencil milling is). It may be quicker and easier to simply insert a new rough mill operation using the smaller tool and under the roughing tab you can choose to machine from WIP or Previous Leftover. Choose previous leftover then click the "..." button and choose which operations you want it to include in its path generation. Select the previous roughing operation and any other operations that you want and hit OK. It will take some tweaking of other settings to get it how you want it but it should get you close to the result you want.

Let us know if you're still having trouble.

i find using contain and avoid areas also helps out

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Originally Posted by Japazo

There are a few ways to do this depending on what your part actually looks like. You could do it with a multiaxis mill operation and use the pencil mill option (check the manual to explain what pencil milling is). It may be quicker and easier to simply insert a new rough mill operation using the smaller tool and under the roughing tab you can choose to machine from WIP or Previous Leftover. Choose previous leftover then click the "..." button and choose which operations you want it to include in its path generation. Select the previous roughing operation and any other operations that you want and hit OK. It will take some tweaking of other settings to get it how you want it but it should get you close to the result you want.

Let us know if you're still having trouble.

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This "previous leftover" sounds like what I'm looking for, I'll look into that today.

Where abouts is that feature located? I've never noticed it before. (EDIT: I've found it, just trying to work out how to use it!)

Thanks

I've been playing around with it for a while but each time I do it crashes out my PC. Pretty sure you've pointed me in the right direction, I just have to learn how to get it to work.

Here is the current project that I'm trying to toolpath. You can see how a feature like this is super important for me to get working.

Attachment 282864

Update:

I reread your post and I was missing the whole click on "..." part...

You my friend just changed my life, I could not thank you more. This simple little feature will save so much time it's not funny.

VERY much appreciated.

Cheers!

Glad it worked out for you. Let us know if you have any more problems. CAMWorks and I have a love hate relationship, but I really enjoy helping people get through all the stuff that gave me trouble as I learned it.

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Originally Posted by Japazo

Glad it worked out for you. Let us know if you have any more problems. CAMWorks and I have a love hate relationship, but I really enjoy helping people get through all the stuff that gave me trouble as I learned it.

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For the most part it's working and it will reduce hours off my cutting time, but I have noticed it's a bit hit and miss.

As in, sometimes it'll generate a tool path for an area that the previous tool has cleared, or vice versa, the previous tool has completely missed it yet the smaller tool also misses it in the WIP, but if I set it to the smaller tool on its own rough mill it'll hit the entire area. Doesn't make sense

Welcome to CAMWorks...

If you ever find out why it does some things the way it does, the rest of us would be glad to hear it. I'm not saying that any other CAM system does it any better necessarily, but with CAMWorks you get really good at compromising and finding unique ways of doing things. Unfortunately it is just an algorithm based coordinate calculator that does not have the ability to read minds and so cannot do things exactly the way you want it to. It will probably never even come close as long as we are alive. Your best bet it to keep playing with it until you get the result you want, or something close to it, then find another solution to finish off what you're trying to do.

We're glad to help if you can't figure something out!

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Originally Posted by Japazo

Welcome to CAMWorks...

We're glad to help if you can't figure something out!

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It's really a strange thing. I've been experimenting a bit further and found I could save another hour by adding in an extra tool change, for ex, it'll run a 1.6mm bit for about five minutes, then I added a 1.1mm tool change in which runs for about half an hour, then a third tool change to a 0.54mm bit which then runs for about two hours. So those tool paths are now down from day job to under a three hour job.

I've got one other lot of tool paths that are currently sitting at nine hours, I've been meaning to add the 1.1mm tool change into the middle to see how many hours it will cut out. I might try this today

Lots of detail there ...

Surely a contour cut on every raised part as a boss , and a contour cut on every pocket will sort the profile cutting , and then a z depth to remove the bulk ?