I’m trying to create tool paths for a flip job in Meshcam and I can’t get the software to create 6 small holes on one side of the piece. The holes are 6mm deep and 3.2mm diameter, so wider than the 3.175mm diameter 102 end mill I’m using, so it should be possible?
Please see screen shots from Rhino and Meshcam showing the component with and without tool paths and simulations shown.
Any ideas?
(Bonus question - could or should these holes be exactly the diameter of the mill? I thought about that but read that end mills do not like drilling like a drill bit).
.0003mm is the smallest tolerance I can enter with MC9 (I work in inches and .0001" is the smallest calculation tolerance I can use, so in metric you have finer tolerance).
I have posted
On the old grzforum I once likened MeshCam’s toolpath calculation to a blind person using a cane to navigate. If the cane tip was too big relative to an opening, the person couldn’t tell the opening was there at all. That is having the tool being too large relative to the opening. But tightening the calculation tolerance . . . is a major factor.
This won’t magically let you make holes the same size as the cutter, but will give you the best conditions. As @WillAdams said, my rule of thumb is cutter about 90% of the smallest hole/opening.
Since it’s a drilling operation, you could just enter a smaller diameter drill bit into MeshCam, and used your 1/8" drill bit instead for the actual operation.
For some reason the drilling toolpath option becomes greyed out for flip jobs in my version of Meshcam, so I assume I have to run it as a seperate 3 axis program rather than just with a tool change. But yeah it would work for what I want to do, thanks.
Making the tolerance smaller improves the finish on gently-curved 3D surfaces, as long as the input STL is finely-faceted. On flat parts like yours, no real benefit other than being able to machine recesses that are closer in size to the endmill diameter.
