New guy here! I’m working on an advanced v-carve in CC. The design has several large areas to pocket, but also very intricate areas that require a much smaller endmill. What is the most efficient toolpath(s) to clear the large areas before the fine details?
Is it worth doing multiple roughing passes, like first with a 1/4" and then with 1/8" before switching to a small (tapered) ball end mill? If you can share, post a picture so we can give more specific advice.
ok so what I would do is use all the elements of your design, and make two outer offsets, one at 1x diameter of your roughing bit, and one at 2x. Make sure to group each as you make them, there’ll be many different pieces.
Then I’d do the roughing pass between your outer box and the “1x diameter” outline (so the inner of the 2).
THe next toolpath is the advanced vcarve, but instead of doing it from your outer box, I would then do it from the “2x diameter” shape to your actual shape.
Edit: Forget what I wrote, it does not work for your design
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ok having poked at your file a bit, few observations
- I’m very happy that one of my “staple” endmills is a 2mm bit… MUCH faster than the 1/16th you use a lot, and cuts like 30 minutes off your design (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B073TXC45Z)
- you can set the 1/8th bit depth of cut to 0.065 or so… that way you get a single pass which is fine for such a bit
- When I redo the tool choices like that, carbide motion gives me a 2 hour 10 minute estimate… (and this is with F&S I normally use, which are very conservative to what most folks here would use)
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Ok how about this:
Kristen Christmas Sign (1).c2d (806.7 KB)
It has 3 toolpaths; an area clear with an 1/8" bit
then an inside contour with a 2mm bit (can be replaced by a 1/16th bit)
and then advanced V carve but without an area clearance option (!!)…
I’m not convinced the inside contour is actually needed, and by removing it you save 30 minutes, which would make the total time roughly a hour.
other option is to do the pocket with a 1/4" bit, then a contour with 1/8", then that adv vcarve.
It’s about the same time to cut.
You can decide on the 2mm / 1/16" contour after cutting everything else… if there;s little ridges left behind then you can always do that cut last
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I’d played around with offsets also, but it never worked for me either. I think the inside contour is what I was missing. When I only used the pocket and the v-carve the simulation showed the little ridges.
I think I’ll run it with the contour and see how it turns out.
Thanks for all the help, fenrus!
Hi, i wanted to check out what you’ve done. I’m having some trouble with adv v-carve, too. When I open the file, it says it was made with a newer version of C Create, but I have the latest version from the site, 514. Is there a newer version somewhere?
And is it possible to get email notices on release updates?
Thanks
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