3D Roughing Rest Machining?

[ben2ek (Brian)]

First time using the 3D model in CC Pro and getting a little confused – is rest machining supported, or whatever it would be called for 3D modeling?

I’d like to clear out the majority of material using a 1/4" downcut and then use a 1/8" downcut for more detailed roughing, and then finally the finishing pass with a 1/16" or 1/32" ball nose. There’s quite a bit of “low-elevation” material that the 1/8" cut would just take forever to get through. This test is just on 3/4" but I plan on using 6/4 or 8/4 stock and scaling this up, so time savings would be orders of magnitude higher than this version.

You can see the 1/4" toolpath in Red and the 1/8" toolpath in Blue (plus the overlap). How can I exclude the 1/4" depths from the 1/8" toolpath?

[Tod1d (Tod (with 1 'd'))]

No, there is no “Rest Milling” in 3D. The 1/8" path would cut a lot of air.

Consider using a 1/4" ball mill for roughing, and just using a smaller depth of cut.

It’s difficult to tell what the contour looks like in that image. But one way to save time when part of the job is 3D & parts are flat is to only cut the 3D surfaces with 3D toolpaths. Use 2D toolpaths to cut anything flat.

[CullenS (Cullen Simpson)]

You can draw in vectors to restrict where the smaller bits need to operate. Just pick those vectors for that particular finishing pass.