So you have Mastercam, and your company are paying maintance, have you installed X3 yet? have you taken a look at the 2D HST Toolpath?, ok this is the skinny pal.
The way these toolpath are set up is new from Mastercam, not really revolutionizing, but it seems like a good direction, and all Mastercams toolpath are eventually going to be set up this way. Its kinda the same as FBM where you go through different pages to set everything up, everything is nice and clean. One thing that I really like is that you get some help understanding what you actually are modifying as you are working with the different parameters.
That is pretty sweet, makes you just want to start cutting something, right?.
Now as I said in the FBM blog, this is kinda the 1st step in the journey with Solidworks (By the way that whole Solidworks into Mastercam with tree and everything…..BUG, ya I might have to add that story in its own blog this week).
There are 5 different 2D HST avalible, I am going to be brief.
The picture pretty much describe what this toolpath does, something that normally was created with a contour toolpath that was offseted, or a pocket toolpath with some added geometry. I played with it a little bit and it seems like Mastercam have done a pretty good job here, not to many rapid moves.
Peel mill, it was part of X2, I have missed this toolpath for awhile, and I do not welcome it with a smile, but more with a “About Time”. Mastercam is kinda trying to give it an explanation that it is designed for Hard milling, but I feel like it has been the slotting toolpath that should had been there in V7.
Blend mill, I like this one, this toolpath is going to save some air cutting or extra geometry creations. It will control the step over pretty precise in the couple of experiments I did.
Area mill, Without spending hours on this toolpath, it seems to be a advanced pocket toolpath that will let you control how the cutter approches sharp corners. Its missing the old “Roughing/Finishing parameter” page the old pocket toolpath has (That toolpath is still avalible in Mastercam) where you could decide if the cutter was going zigzag or parallel step over, it only has the High speed one.
Rest mill, Mastercam describes it as the toolpath that cuts what other toolpaths left behind. I do not know, it sound a little like a personal problem, what is it like the “Left over” surface toolpath……Hm……I am going to leave it with that.
I am going to leave the “Whats new” in X3 from the milling side unless you have a comment or it comes up in something we will play with here on the blog.