[cwhettinger]

Hi all,

I am milling some control knobs for a friend and I am fairly new to camworks. On the knobs, there are two grooves on the side. The photo below shows the part in the orientation I want to machine the grooves in (Z moves up/down in photo).

Attachment 263604

I want to use a threadmill to cut the grooves, but I can't seem to figure out how to get camworks to cut them. I have defined a boss feature but it won't allow me to pick anything but a flat end mill, so it clearly isn't defined right.

Any help would be appreciated. Will post if I find a solution (unlikely!). Hoping to avoid using a 4th axis setup just to put these grooves on.

-Charlie

[jame5m28]

You won't be able to use a camworks defined treadmill they can only be used in thread milling ops...

However you could.... Create a user defined tool with all the info of the thread mill and use that in a contour operation.

[cwhettinger]

However you could.... Create a user defined tool with all the info of the thread mill and use that in a contour operation.

Thanks for the reply - just to be clear - are you saying create a new thread mill with the correct dimensions that is not already in the tool database? Or a new "flat end mill" and change the parameters enough to make it perform the same way?

What confuses me is how does cam works produce paths for external pipe threads? I would have thought this would be done the same way.

[jame5m28]

You would use an external thread milling cycle, however that would give you helical machining those groves aren't helical!

What you will need to do is look up "user defined tool" in the help file, you will be able to creat e a user defined tool using a solid model of yr thread mill tool, you can then use this user defined tool instead of a flat end mill in your contour mill operation.

[cwhettinger]

You would use an external thread milling cycle, however that would give you helical machining those groves aren't helical!

What you will need to do is look up "user defined tool" in the help file, you will be able to create a user defined tool using a solid model of yr thread mill tool, you can then use this user defined tool instead of a flat end mill in your contour mill operation.

Ok - thanks! Now I understand. I got stuck thinking that CamWorks could be "finagled" using thread milling.

I changed the path to be an engrave of a sketch using using your logic and it appears that it will work perfectly. I really appreciate your help. I am at the point where I don't know if I am not understanding how to do something, or if what I'm trying to do is impossible. Regardless, learned something!

-Charlie