Hardcore Aluminum milling on an S3

I’ll take some screen shots in a bit, show you what I’m doing.

Here we go, for the part in the video

Setup tab:

Adaptive clearing,
Tool:


Geometry:

Passes:

Linking:

Toolpath:

You could do the same cut without the 10mm offset in the Geometry tab, I just discovered, but I wonder if you’d get more heat in the narrow channel being cut? I’ll see what happens if I cut the part again.

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Yes, it is similar to stepover. OL will maintain a constant DOC.

For choosing where it enters, you need to go the rightmost tab in the toolpath setup “Linking”. You can tell it to not enter from the edge there down at the bottom.

Otherwise, you may need to go to the “Geometry” tab and force it to stay inside your boundary and not to try using all your stock.

If you post your file, I can help more.

Yeah, I’ve tried setting the entry point on the linking, but it doesn’t seem to let me select a spot in the middle of a geometry plane, I can only select edges.
Tried attaching my file here, but it won’t let me attach .step files. Guess this will have to wait until I get home tonight.
I’m sure I’m missing something obvious…

@griff, thanks for the pics.
I’m not seeing an entry point setting in there. So I guess that bore operation was the start of the center pocket?

Honestly, I’ve never set an entry point.

In this case the entry point was the lower, right corner.

Just add .zip to the end of the file and tell the recipient to remove .zip.

thanks griff. can’t believe I forgot the extension trick. :slight_smile:
suppose i could just zip it too. didn’t see that in the list the first time around.

anyway, here it is.
it’s just a small touchprobe plate, but the stock is bigger than the piece (may not be reflected in the current design… i’ve been mucking around a bit). So the start of the pocket when set to adaptive is a full width/depth gouge around the outside that’s more than the router likes to handle.(current path is standard 2d pocket because I couldn’t get the optimal the way i wanted)

touchprobe_plate v20.zip (5.0 KB)

Really appreciate everyone’s help so far!

Just for anyone else’s interest, the file extension is “.step” not “.f3d”.

I tried it out and generated an adaptive clear for the recessed bottom portion. It enters in the middle with a helix like I expected it to. However, my setup stock is set to exactly the same size but doesn’t alter the tool path when I increase the stock setup. Otherwise, the rest of the setup are the defaults.

Geometry


Toolpath

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Oh, I did get it to try and enter outside the stock but it only happens when you select the face and not the 2d contours. As a general recommendation I heard, when using 2D toolpaths, try and select the contour lines as much as possible to avoid scenarios like this.

If you want to select the face, you will be better off switching to 3D adaptive, then everything worked like the 2D adaptive when I selected the contour lines.

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@IrishMoss If you share the f3d or, better, the online link, it’ll be easier to diagnose what you’re doing and where you were headed.

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Wow, I wonder if it was as simple as that! I’ve tried so many things, i forget what i’ve tried or not. ….forest for trees or something like that. :wink:

Can’t wait to get home now and try this out.
Thanks again for the help Jon, much appreciated!

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Yep, absolutely! Glad to help. Let us know if you get it to work properly.

Also, like Neil pointed out, if you share the “.f3d” file next time, it will save your toolpaths so we can better understand what you were attempting.

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Happy to report that I finally got the adaptive toolpath working. :grinning:
Seems i missed those little red contour arrows the first time. It’s not entirely clear from their direction and placement, but apparently that’s what flips the path between in-out and out-in.

Also during my random perusal through the other paths, I discovered the “roughing passes” option for the contour/cutout operation, to make the path wider. Another critical one for me, as I was having issues when these passes got deep and any bits of backlash would cause a chatterific mess from the tight tolerance between the walls.

Certainly taking time to learn, but the more I learn, the more I’m liking f360. It’s pretty damn powerful.

Also, for anyone who’s a fusion noob like me, I recommend using 3D adaptive over 2D.
I don’t know what I did wrong the first time I tried 3D adaptive, but I tried it again after getting a bit frustrated fighting with the 2D stuff. Every time I edited the 2D toolpath, the geometry selections (and hence the toolpath) got mucked up even if I didn’t touch that tab. I had to keep reselecting the edges in the right order to get the spiral path back.
3D just seems to work better and is a lot less glitchy.

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Is this a heatsink, or a tiny hairbrush for Al cutting enthusiasts ? :slight_smile:

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Possibilities. Machine all the parts

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0ver 100lbs billeto

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That’s really impressive! - 6061 T6 aluminum with a standard Shapeoko, Makita router, and no coolant/lubricants?:slightly_smiling_face: Who really needs 50kRPM?

2019-04-20 Edit - OOPs - not a standard Shapeoko or Makita router after all.

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Vince , today what can you tell us about the belts reinforced with steel, which improves with the use and how much should these belts be tightened?.

They feel good. Was cutting adaptive at 300ipm tonight no issues.

Maximum acceptable belt tension is written in the wiki

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Double sided 3d machined, npt threadmilled

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