New to VisualMill

[MecSoft Support]

Hello

My name is Bill Griffin. I am new to visual mill and the world of 3d machining. I have a background in electronics and work for a mid sized electronics company where about 8 years ago I started machining turned parts on my cordless Makita drill. I have since progressed from the drill, manual Sherline, CNC Sherline, light machine, Supermax knee mill, and now a machining center.

The first cad cam software I used was Bobcat for dos.....

We are now using ProE for design and I have been using Geopath to create tool path for the parts. If anyone is interested you can see some of the parts I have programmed and machined at http://www.grifftek.com/1/

Lately I have found myself with surfaces to machine that are beyond my capabilities with Geopath so I now have visual mill and I am quite excited about learning to use it. I would also like to be able to use the 3 axis horizontal roughing and Re-Roughing capabilities to reduce the programming times for some of the larger parts. like the plate layout and guide parts shown in the link above.

Over the years I have become quite proficient at machining the 2.5d parts and have developed my own process for these kinds of parts. I know this may sound a little strange but what I mean is that I have never worked in a machine shop and have never worked with other machinists so most everything I know about machining I have taught myself mainly by trial and error and with the help of some friends I have met over the years, many from forums like this one or through Usenet.

I am fortunate enough that I am relatively close to MecSoft and have been able to spend a few hours with Kal learning the software. While I am still fumbling around with the software itself I have been able to create some toolpath and make some chips. I am not completely happy with my results at this point but things look promising.

Where I think I need the most help is with the application of the different machining strategies. For example, when do you apply valley re-machining, parallel hill machining, or pencil tracing?
I don't expect anyone to sit down and write a book explaining this to me. I believe that this is something that takes a long time to learn and is learned by doing. If anyone knows of any good books that describe the various machining strategies and their application please pass it along.

What I would like to ask of the group is if there is anyone that is willing to share some of their visual mill .vmp files that I could pick apart and analyze the various MOPS it would be most appreciated. If anyone is willing to share this or any other info that may help other visual mill users I would be happy to make a few directories available on my domain for others to access the information.

Thanks

Bill Griffin

email: [email protected]