Originally Posted by
mflux_gamblej
I did a test of a trochoidal toolpath using AFF with all G1 moves vs. not AFF with G2/G3 allowed.
The toolpath with AFF runs 6% slower than the one with arcs allowed and no AFF.
That being said, the path using all G1 and AFF is much more smooth, it seems to be under much better motion control. I had to make a LUT of feedrate vs. helical angle / z delta to get my fadal to do the trochoidal paths because if you just let it go as the cam wants to, the fadal gives 'helical ramp too short' errors or something like that - meaning that it cannot interpolate the helix at the high feedrate. So the program will go especially for finishing / rest material paths that it feeds up to the helix at like 150ipm, then I have to instantly program a G9 and an F5, or F2, during a small helix, then reprogram the G8 and F150. I doubt that the control is really able to do this in reality - it probably just doesn't throw an error and the motion probably has a huge error on it. using this method the motion overall isn't quite jerky, but there are plenty of smaller booms still (down from clearly destructive booms and many errors when there is no LUT applied). I've been running like that for about a year. I was also told that G9 doesn't even take effect for something like 0.1" beyond where you program it due to the buffer, and due to high feed rates - so programming the G9, helix and F_low, G8 in reality doesn't do squat. interesting stuff
with all G1 moves + aff, there is no feedrate LUT, g9/g8, or other post processor nonsense required, the moves are really smooth, and the cycle time isn't much longer (and maybe I can shorten it by changing the aff ramp parameters).