I’m trying to figure out a workaround for machining regions and keep out regions in Carbide Create (like in Meshcam).
I have a nameplate I milled with a name on it. Everything looks good except for a couple of spots where the mill was unable to reach. I can definitely specify a smaller end mill, but this will make my overall machine time much greater. What I wanted to do was specify a smaller end mill for to finish machining just the couple of regions that it can’t reach.
Does anyone have any suggestions to make this work? I suppose I could just do the whole thing in Meshcam but there are a couple of things I like in Carbide Create. Like the ability to to v-carving and the ability to follow an outline only. Following the outline is also nice for running a ball end to a limited depth to create a concave edge for example.
What I’ve done in this kind of situation is brute force and ignorance: multiple jobs with different software tools, and specifying the stock dimension in each toolchain to make sense for the current step. Keep the workpiece fixtured throughout and design both (all) jobs to work from the same zero – or take some other approach to keep the different steps in physically the same coordinates.
Using this approach I’ve been able to use entirely different software toolchains for different parts or sub-jobs of the overall job of milling the part.
For example, I recently made a brass name plate (a 3D shape with bevels and countersunk screw holes not a simple cutout) with engraved pictures and v-carved text, using both Meshcam and CC. As a newbie to CNC CC is the only way I know how to do V-carving; so the V-carving was done in CC. I also used two different Meshcam jobs: one to carve the 3D shape with a ball cutter and the other to surface the top area of the part for engraving, with a flat cutter. So I ran three entirely different sub-jobs one after the other in order to make this particular brass thingy.