Deskproto 7.1 Crack
Arleen Smelko
This is a very importantpoint for all beginners: when you add, delete, change or edit any operation tothe geometry, you have to visually monitor (with the view options) theresulting toolpaths that the cnc will make. This process of observing thedifferences between the original geometry (designed in a cad software) and theresulting toolpaths in deskproto, will guide you to understand if the cuttingoperations you are preparing, will correspond to the desired form you want to sculptwith the milling machine. This is the basic strategy to learn how to cncmilling.
These parameters are definedin values of d/x, which means the diameter of the cutter divided by a number x.For example if you chose a distance of d/3 for a ballnose tip of 6 mm diameter,the distance will be 2mm. Usually you should choose the same value for bothparameters.
So the Precision (horizontalDistance between toolpaths) together with the Layer height (how deep thecutter may sink into the material) determine how much material is removed per toolpath.The default values of D/5 (precision) and half the cutting length of the cutter(layer height) will be OK for wood and tooling board. The default Speeds willdo as well. For light materials (foam, light wood) precision D/3 will do, formaterials like perspex and aluminum smaller values will be needed. You willhave to find your own optimal values.
For soft materials is "less important", but for hard materials these parameters are fondamental. The Best way to find the correct settings is to look on the web for "speeds and feeds chart". It's also eassy to find the formulas to calculate the proper values of these parameters. There are also software calculators. And finally most tool manufacturers will provide speed and feed reccomendations for their tools based on material ...
Removes bulk of material from allsurfaces.
The parallel toolpath moves the tool in equally spaced parallel passes in the Xor Y plane across the surface. Like all rough toolpaths, it cuts the surface inseveral Z steps. Rough toolpaths are done with coarse tools and settings inorder to remove material before cutting a finish pass with finer settings.
Detail settings forparallel are the following: Along X-axis means toolpaths parallelto the X-axis (so on constant Y), and Along Y-axis meanstoolpaths parallel to the Y-axis. For each of these two starting point areavailable: front versus back and left versus right. In addition an Angle withX-axis can be entered to create toolpaths thatare not parallel to X and Y, but still parallel to one another.
Crosswise
This is the same as creating two operations where oneof them uses parallel to X, and the other one uses parallel to Y. This optionis useful in case the model you want to produce must have a very good surfacequality: the staircase effect resulting from the parallel X toolpath will beremoved by the parallel Y toolpath and vice-versa.
The default Block strategyis optimal for most geometry, as it will minimize the number of positioningmoves during the lower layers. WhenRoughing if the cutter moves in from the outside, at some point the remainingmaterial in the center will be cut loose. That loose chunk of material maydamage your model.
The radial toolpathcuts radial spokes out from a centerpoint. The spokes are arrayed every fixednumber of degrees. As a result, the stepover and scallop height increase towardthe outside.
Although this is not a widely used toolpath, it can lead to some veryinteresting textures worthy of experiment.
Waterline machining produces toolpathson a constant Z-level. They have a fixed Z-distance in-between each twotoolpaths. Such strategy is also called contour machining or Z-plane machining.
The contour toolpath can be used to have the tool cut along a curve. Thecurve can be planar or 3D.
The contour toolpath can be used as a clean-up pass to remove scalloping from aprevious surface milling operation, to smoothen the model.
Layer Height: instead oftrying to remove all material at once, it will be done layer by layer. Thedefault layer height equals the whole cutting length of the cutter. In mostcases it is preferable to use a smaller custom-defined layer height, as with atough material you do not want the cutter to use its total cutting length.
For light materials likefoam the height can be equal or less than thecut length of the bit or cutter. For medium materials like mdf, plywood orsolid wood it should be equal or less than thediameter of the bit.For strong materials like perspex or metal you willneed to use smaller values.
Finally The Rampingangle is used when starting to machine. Normally the cutter enters the materialin a vertical downward movement. With this parameter you can cmooth how thecutters enters, to protect it from breaking.
You can start themilling calculations by pressing the button Calculate Toolpaths. If thedistance and stepsize are very small the milling calculations will take a moretime. So while editing and testing different parameters, you can sometimes usemomentarily bigger distance and stepsize values to go try things quicker in deskproto.
You can best see the 2Dtoolpath as a pen-plotter operation: the pen (so here the cutter) willoperate on two Z-levels. The pen will draw lines at pen-down level, andin-between it will make positioning moves at pen-up level. The same happenswhile 2D machining: the Machining level Z-value defines the pen-down level, andthe Free Movement height on the third tab defines the pen-up level.
The conversion is infact very simple: each pixel has a gray value, which can be black, white orsome in-between shade of gray. This gray value will be converted to a Z-value.You need to define Z-levels for black and for white; all in-between Z-levelswill be calculated automatically. This is called Gray-value to Z-heightconversion.
This document is an attempt to make a quickintroduction to the basics of cnc milling using deskproto. It has information fromdifferent sources; the main ones are the official reference manual and tutorialfrom deskproto. You can download the original documents at