[mmoe]

Thanks guys for the tremendous help. Seems as though my internet is down at the house so cant watch the vids till tomorrow. Before I left the shop I redid the boundary, my step overs and made it rest rough and worked perfect. Will try and clean it the rest of the way with equidistant?

This biz I bought was supposed to come with 2 weeks training from the previous owner/machinist. He has gone awol so far so I am stuck just trying to do everything I can on my own to get production going asap.

I am starting to get my head wrapped around BCC, may wind up just upgrading it to 27, will save me quite a bit of doe.

For your current part, I think I'd probably use some 2d operations next to cut the large holes to shape and finish profiling the perimeter (this is tricky because of those wing-like things), then "Flatlands", 2d "Chamfer", 3d "Pencil" and finally Drilling ops. V24 doesn't support slot cutters (or any other undercutting bit), so you have to use your head a bit to do that portion of the job by running it as a 2d Profile routine and specifying the cutter radius smaller by the depth of the slot, while being sure to make the lead in/ lead out long enough for the cutter to clear when the Z goes up and down. Newer versions support T-cutters as well as Lollipop cutters and some others that V24 does not (though again you could always figure it out in V24 manually by visualizing how it should relate to the cutter).

V27 will be quite a jump for you compared to V24. V24 was very good in it's day and still a very capable program, but the last 3 or 4 years have brought extremely rapid development from Bobcad, maybe more than just about any other CAM application on the market. Each version has had significant improvements, so moving up 3 versions will be a huge jump in technology. The CAM tree is a little different and takes a little getting used to coming from V24, but once you get used to it, it's way more efficient. You can do simple things like "Copy/Paste" a feature into the cam tree if you're doing basically the same op more than once with different geometry. You can then reselect the geometry to the new geometry, make quick adjustments if needed to the toolpath via edit and you're done. This used to be much more of a run around using the "Save Feature/Load Feature" system in V24.

V27 has dynamic mouse zooming, which I think will make it seem even more familiar (where you zoom to where the mouse is positioned, not just straight in). There are many times more opportunities to do simple frequent motions like "Compute". You can do it at the end of the toolpath wizard (missing in V24, so you always have to right click and then calculate), you can do it at the feature level, which often will have more than one operation in it because of the new "Dynamic Machining System" format of the toolpath wizard, you can do it for the whole program, and I believe you can do it for each machine setup if I remember right. I tend to just do it when I finish setting the toolpath up in the wizard, or recalculating at the feature level. There are numerous other cases where the software has been significantly refined to be faster and easier to use, so I don't think you'd be disappointed. I think you're starting to get the hang of Bobcad, and really once you get to understand it, it's pretty easy and quite efficient all around. My advice would be to stick with at least 3 Axis Mill Pro so that you can keep the advanced toolpaths. You'll really like how they have been improved since V24 with "adaptive" functions in many of them (those alone are worth the upgrade. I also highly recommend the Pro level simulation as well. That's something that I sorely miss when I work in V24 now (don't need it often, but sometimes I need to reuse an old file).

You can also do 2d toolpaths right off of the 3d geometry now, which is a huge time saver. If you're going to cut out a profile of a part, you can use the perimeter geometry to define the shape, then you can use the mouse to select the bottom of the cut by clicking on part of the model that is the correct depth. This is really handy when you don't really know the exact depth off the top of your head, but you know it's right there on the model. 2d and 3d toolpaths feel really well integrated now, where they used to feel foreign to each other when you had to have line drawings for 2d and solids/surfaces for 3d.

A cool thing about Bobcad is that when you upgrade, you are getting a whole new license, so you can actually keep using the older version as well. This is good since the files are only "mostly" compatible, meaning that as the toolpath strategies are changed and improved, they don't always work the same way as they used to, so usually you have to go through them again when importing older version files. They work, but it's just easier to go back to the version you made it in unless you want to redo it with the newer strategies. By having both, you have the option of going either way.

[BurrMan]

Probably better to have mmoe or jr discuss the setup of toolpath strategies, but I will second their sentiments....

In the newer system, you would just add the strategies to the same feature, and set the rest stuff, for a quick cleanup... Although advanced rough CAN do this, it's not really a finishing strategy too ("mmoe")

V24 will do it, you will just have to make several features to break it up.... I also think the newer versions are better with "stock" and knowing what's already happened.. V24 was the first strike at any type of stock aware toolpaths....

@Bean:
Your training has bailed on you.... Make it a point to come in here and ask something BEFORE you blow a gasket..... Plenty of guy's can help get you up to speed... You'll will do much better with some of the basics, before hitting a wall. Without some type of help, it may seem more like poking yourself with a hot iron... Just a tad of help, and you can get going...

[BurrMan]

It is interesting that you were able to rough out those big holes. Did just stitching it to a solid allow that to work out? Without the stitching, I was just getting non-sense in those areas.

Yes. If you aren't stitched, you really have just a mass of separate surfaces, with no definition of join... A lot of times you don't notice, but it can/will most certainly violate the "intent" of the part... (Roll over edges, not a hole etc....)

[MikeC8]

I use advance rough, advance finish, z-level finish, and equidistant a lot. I will also use planner on some features. I've had good luck doing a advance rough, followed with a z level finish, then a equidistant finish when doing mold work.

With V27, you can now select drive curves with a equidistant toolpath, which can help prevent some of the dwells and speed up the machine time. I haven't had any luck selecting multiple drive curve regions yet.

If you do a lot of 3d surface work, the multi axis tool paths can be quite powerful and calculate very quick.