Letters or lines are joined together in QuickCAM follow path

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Denford Admin
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Letters or lines are joined together in QuickCAM follow path

Post by Denford Admin » Wed 23 May , 2007 11:16 am

We have had a user who wanted to engrave some text using the Follow Path machining plan in QuickCAM 2D.

He complained that the letters were joining together, ie the tool did not pull out of the job before moving on to the next letter

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Denford Admin
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Posts: 3635
Joined: Fri 10 Feb , 2006 12:40 pm
Hardware/Software: Go to User Control Panel > Profile
Enter as much information about your CNC hardware and software as you can - it makes it easier for everyone to know what you're talking about then.
Location: Sunny Brighouse
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Post by Denford Admin » Wed 23 May , 2007 11:22 am

We found that he had not thought about the diameter of the cutter - thinking that it would not matter for the follow plan because it does not need to know the tool diameter.

However, QuickCAM looks at the size of the cutter when creating toolpaths, and determines whether it needs to lift out of the job to get to the next cut.
It does this to make broken contours machine smoothly on the machine, instead of lifting out and feeding back in all the time

To overcome this problem, the user just had to select a small diameter cutter to use on the Follow Plan
Attachments
quickcam2d-paddy2.gif
This picture highlights how the tool will not be lifted out between letters, if QuickCAM thinks the cutter is wider than the gap between the letters
quickcam2d-paddy2.gif (39.93 KiB) Viewed 5248 times
quickcam2d-paddy1.gif
How the text should look - after using a small diameter cutter in the Follow Machining Plan
quickcam2d-paddy1.gif (31.67 KiB) Viewed 5248 times

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