[Beansdiesel]

Thanks mmoe, trying some your suggestions out. Good to know on the stock geo, wasnt sure if 3d paths needed it or not. Thought I had put a stock geo on one of those square lines, not sure if I didnt or I deleted it at some point messing with everything. I will make sure and always have it from now on.

On that boundary on the second pass, I cant for the life of me make the ends connect. I have tried everything I know, connect lines, intersect points, end points, clean up utility etc. My way of checking for gaps is to use select and hold shift and click on it, if its broken it wont all light up. The way I made the line was to use the line offset and offset it .250 outside of the original that I had extracted from the solid. When I do that it leaves gaps at the inside curves. Then nothing I try that normally works will reconnect them.

[mmoe]

It's not just if the geometry is broken, it's also if there is an extra piece of geometry. My guess is that you missed deleting one of the little line segments. I'll make a quick video to show what I'd do.

[mmoe]

Here's a link to the video. I made it as short as I could to keep the file size down, but it's still a 30mb download. Hopefully you're not on dial up or something (do they still have that?).

I didn't zoom in as much as I maybe should have for the deleting of the lines, so I'll just tell you that there are two lines and a point in each corner that I deleted. You should delete one long line, one very short line segment (which didn't always show up as well in the video) and one point in each area you see me delete things. The points are hard to say if they are exactly on the ends of the other lines, so I feel it's best to delete them in this case. Then you just use the "Join" line and put the cursor near the end of the line where you want to snap to/from until the line you want to intersect with is highlighted red.

I didn't go through the entire toolpath setup, so the second operation did take a little longer than when I went through it fully for the file I posted earlier. In this case, the second op took maybe twice as long to calculate as the first op, but that's just a matter of settings in the op that could streamline it further. The main thing is that I feel the safest way to set up the last page is with the S-links and retracting as I show. Just my opinion, but I do it that way pretty much every time with Advanced Roughing and never have collisions.

You should also check that you have the latest update of V24. It should be build number 546. I'm guessing you do or you probably couldn't open the file I posted, but worth checking. V24 if very stable for me, and I just don't get much crashing. I upgraded to V26 mostly for the increased productivity in how it's set up and also the additional "adaptive" toolpaths that really make Advanced Rough shine even more. Plus, I really like all the lead in options in V26 for the 2d toolpaths, which are vastly improved over V24 and V25. Stability of the program has never really been something that I've been concerned with. Keep in mind that I was running video capture software while the calcs were being made, which really saps some of the life out of your computer. As you will see, it still performed quite well and that's about the worst case scenario (next to rendering a 2 hour full HD video in Sony Vegas while working in Bobcad, which I have done at times!).

https://files.secureserver.net/0sw0RDIbYaPgcD


Another quick note. I like to use the extrude curves function even is I just need a surface. I find it faster than the surface tools in Bobcad to just make the whole solid, unstitch it into surfaces and then delete all but the surface I need. May just be me, but I always have trouble with the surface tools and half the time I end up doing it two or three times if I use them. The extrude curves function always works right for me the first time, so much easier IMHO.

[BurrMan]

I'll make a quick video to show what I'd do.

Aha... Beat you!!!

bbcd cleanup - YouTube

In the video:

Cleanup boundry = quick trim end, translate arcs only to endpoints and rejoin. Stitch surfaces to solid.

At the end, I open a file with second op calculated. Didn't record the 2 minutes it took to calc... As mmoe states, it takes long because it is a "HEAVY CALC"... Just look at it and all the little ramps going forever... You could certainly do better on that path....

Machine association with his file seems to be corrupted....

Beans new an has a thread with "issues"... Here's my take on it....

He's stated it's a system purchased and new to them. They are probably fairly proficient in several softwares and other packages (Dad and vetric) Bean can somewhat fly around pretty well on computer...

V24 loaded and "dove into, full speed ahead".....

BobCad being slightly heavier than single objective packages (And especially 3 versions ago), needs definite structure and movement.....

Before going too deep with "how to do advanced rough", I would suggest a look into making sure the system is setup correctly, and a good post processor......

So, A good machine file. a good post processor. Pref's setup. A quick run through on how to use the system.....

my 2 cents...

(Damn mmoe... Beat me while I was typing.... )

[mmoe]

Aha... Beat you!!!



(Damn mmoe... Beat me while I was typing.... )

I skipped Youtube, which saves time waiting for it to endlessly process the video.

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.

[mmoe]

Another thing to try is setting your second Advanced Rough op to "Rest Roughing". I think you will find that it really isn't a necessary op as most of the cutting is just cutting air after the first pass. The main thing to remember is that Advanced Rough is just for quick material removal. It seems like you're trying to use it for some of the finish work, when really it just isn't the right op for that purpose. Once you get the roughing done, you'd want to move on to profiling and facing the surfaces using other strategies. I'll have another look tonight, if Burr doesn't do so first, and go through the steps I'd take to actually program a part like that. If I did the second Advanced Roughing, I'd just do it with the "Rest Roughing" on to save time. It literally only has to clean up the interior corners around those wing like things, which would probably save half an hour of machining. Everything after that is meant to produce a finished surface, so it's different ops.

[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....)