Design for CAM
Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2017 3:48 pm
In the past I've created patterns for casting by gluing up premade parts and filleting the joints with compound. The attached PDF shows a pretty simple pattern that normally I'd make by gluing up a disk turned on the lathe. There's draft on all the edges. I can certainly glue up a big block and have the CAM software remove everything that isn't needed. I can also just glue up a block that is slightly larger than the hub.
What I don't know how to do is set this up so the CNC router doesn't spend hours cutting air where there isn't a block. Is there a way to set a boundary limit so it know the flat area is 1mm thicker than the target area and the hub is a square block with XY a few millimeters larger than the diameter of the hub? The milling to size would have to start outside the corners of the square block that will make up the hub.
This way the generated G-Code would only profile the hub and then finish merging the fillet into the larger surface?
Seems like there should be an easy way to do this. I have a number of patterns to make and most are more complicated but I suspect if I can do this one I can do them all.
Thanks
John
What I don't know how to do is set this up so the CNC router doesn't spend hours cutting air where there isn't a block. Is there a way to set a boundary limit so it know the flat area is 1mm thicker than the target area and the hub is a square block with XY a few millimeters larger than the diameter of the hub? The milling to size would have to start outside the corners of the square block that will make up the hub.
This way the generated G-Code would only profile the hub and then finish merging the fillet into the larger surface?
Seems like there should be an easy way to do this. I have a number of patterns to make and most are more complicated but I suspect if I can do this one I can do them all.
Thanks
John