Something I’ve thought about for years is a spiral finishing toolpath, for making things like medallions, challenge coins, giant jackalope nickel plaques, etc. Basically anything round. I know that actual coins have sometimes been machined this way. Assuming that the workpiece was centered at (0,0) the only parameter would be the pitch of the spiral, and then MC would traverse it like it would parallel finishing…
Just a Friday thought…
If you have that spiral in vector format it’s just a contour path with no offset.
The tricky part is getting it to start on the outside if the spiral was made the other way from the center. For larger stepovers, just scale up the curve & chop off the bits you don’t need.
Now, as a 3D cut pattern, that would be cool!!
Project any path to a 3D surface would be even cooler! Then you could just use your spiral vector or any shape you wanted. (like text, or roads on a 3D terrain)
PixelCNC at deftware.org has this toolpath option.
Yes, Tod, that is my exact request. MeshCAM has parallel X, parallel Y, waterline, pencil finishing toolpath strategies but not spiral.
Thank you, @Chaotica. That gives hope that Rob could theoretically add the feature to MeshCAM. I do remember briefly talking with him about the concept some years ago…
Agreed, that would be a nice addition. I’m currently cutting some ‘Knobs’ that would benefit greatly.
In the Fusion world it’s called a Scallop. I don’t know about the real world.
