[cobrakai]

I am trying to mill this angled surface. Conveniently it is 45 degrees relative to the XY plane, so a 90 degree chamfer mill could handle this from the top in my Tormach. However, it would be nice to remove most of the material with a square end mill first.

I've tried everything I can think of, including roughing waterline, drive, roughing plane, etc. and setting various job zones, restriction zones. The closest I have come is using the roughing plane operation with .001" scallop at 90 degrees (so it runs up and down in the same direction as the ridges), setting the bottom level to the angled surface itself, and setting a job zone in blue so that it doesn't try to mill the whole piece. It has some weird behavior although the final result is not bad.

Yet, I still can't figure out how to use the chamfer mill to finish it off.

How would you approach this?

[tkgb]

It should work with a waterline operation if you pick the 45 degree face as the job assignement.
Did you leave any stock in your roughing operation?

[cobrakai]

It should work with a waterline operation if you pick the 45 degree face as the job assignement.
Did you leave any stock in your roughing operation?

You know, it was really weird. I think due to the segmented shape of the face it really screwed up when I tried selecting that face. So instead I had to assign a job area and ended up scalloping it with .001" scallop heights using the Roughing Plane operation. The surface cleaned up quickly with a file afterward. Next time I will try using a proper chamfer mill and using the waterline operation.

[scottsss]

If you know your step down, you could try splitting the model with horizontal planes at your step levels. Then when you rejoin the model those lines should remain software dependent. The across the vertical slots you just draw a line. Once done 2d contour should work if waterline does not. More steps I know, but a work around. I'll post a pict in the next few days of what I mean. Pic might be clearer.

I tried waterline ruff on a model that does not have the vertical slots, but need to figure a way to limit the job zone. I'll post my sprutcam file at the same time I post the pic.

[scottsss]

Attachment 218272

Here is the idea with a picture. I hope it better illistrates my idea.

[scottsss]

Here is the Sprutcam file, I tried cap planer hole but that didn't have an effect. But the simulation with Waterline shows that it would work so there is no need to subdivide the model like I did. You just have to play with Speeds and feeds and a few other settings.