waterline optimization

[piot...@o2.pl]

Is there an easy way to get waterline-like strategy optimized so that the tool would step down to next horizontal level instead of going in small increments?

[blenderCAM developer]

Hello, what exactly do you mean? Layers should actually now step down to next level... 

[piot...@o2.pl]

I wanted endmill to follow shapes on different z-'levels' accurately but not every 1mm or 0.1mm if I want horizontal surfaces at desired levels - hard to explain. I'll try attach some images.

[piot...@o2.pl]

[pdx...@gmail.com]

I would also like to have this feature.  Here is my description of what is needed.

If I want to cut a 5mm high cube with a slot that is 4mm deep and I use the waterline strategy with the distance between slices set to 2mm, I currently will get cuts at depths of -1mm, -3mm and -5mm. The slot will not be deep enough. 

It would be nice if the strategy could identify surfaces parallel to the xy plane and add those to the depths that are cut.  So in the example I would get cuts at depths or -5mm, -4mm, -and -2mm.  Or cuts at -5mm, -4mm, -3mm, and -1mm would be fine too.

[piot...@o2.pl]

Right now I set steps to 0.1mm and make a huge file that would take days to mill on my machine. Then I post-process this file to remove redundant passes and I end up with gcode that is quite useful for me.

[blenderCAM developer]

Hello, 

thanks for this feedback.

I understand now what you meant. 

RIght now, the best thing you can do if your object has exactly flat levels is - make it as curves, and use pocket/cutout operations on them.

Remember, also when the object is allready a mesh, you can select edges and convert them to curves.

With regards Vilem

[blenderCAM developer]

Hello, I see there is a bug in google groups now. 

Sometimes, some messages are marked as spam, although they are user posts. When I go to management tools and click on post and always allow messages from this person, the message gets deleted. I don't know why. Please, If you posted message to this thread, try to re-post.

On Friday, January 3, 2014 2:51:14 AM UTC+1, piot...@o2.pl wrote:

[Alan Zimmerman]

Thanks for the tip about Converting to curves and using pocket/cutout.  It looks like it will give me very good results. (I haven't tried milling it yet).

For any other blender newbies like me, this is how I did the convert to curves from mesh:

• Go to edit mode
• Select the edges
• Shift+D to duplicate and left click (without moving mouse)
• P to separate to a new object and click "selection" 
• Go to object mode

 

Thanks for the tip about Converting to curves and using pocket/cutout.  It looks like it will give me very good results. (I haven't tried milling it yet).

For any other blender noobs like me, this is how I did the convert to curves from mesh:

• Go to edit mode
• Select the edges
• Shift+D to duplicate and left click without moving the mouse
• P to separate to a new object and click "selection"
• Go to object mode
• Select the newly created object
• Alt+C and click "Curve to mesh/Text"

This object should be usable for the pocket and cutout operations.

I imported my initial object as an .stl file and I was unable to select an edge loop.  When I first edit the object if I do "mesh->delete->limited disolve"  edge loop selection worked better but not perfect.  Also, if I select multiple loops of edges within a loop edges I got islands that behaved as I wanted by the pocket operation. 

[piot...@o2.pl]

Good tip.
I was too lazy to assume this should be done by breaking geometry into smaller pieces but I decided to learn blender and hopefully this will speed up my work with BlenderCAM.
Thanks!