Made a little more progress on the part for @jaelen_hsu. I've been swamped lately with other work, so I haven't had a tremendous amount of time to work on this project.

Currently working through the best toolpaths for this type of part, I am taking my time and set up all the settings for each endmill and toolpath to make future workflow fast and easy. Taking advantage of sketch geometry in my CAM setups to make boundaries easier to select, which opens me up to many more toolpath options. 

I played around a bit to find what the best types of toolpaths were ideal for milling out these small areas and found that the 2D adaptive and pocket clearing worked the best. But I'm curious to know what other people may use, and would be very interested in everyone's thoughts on how it might be done most efficiently. If I get permission from the owner of the model, I will share the file during and after finished with the part with videos showing the operations in action. 

For this, I am doing an adaptive clearing for the front and back of the part using a 3/16" square endmill, then a bunch of pocketing and adaptive toolpaths for making the smaller features using a 1/16" square endmill.

Today I got to finish the majority of the steel plate I've been working on the past couple days. 

Unfortunately, I'm not able to show very much of the project since it's under an NDA. I was able to finish cleaning the top face of the part and came in with a 1/16" square endmill to do an adaptive clearing and contour the small pins on top. Due to how they were located, there a tiny amount of material that couldn't get cut with the 1/2" endmill.

Two features on this part are critical, one hole, and a pocket, which needs to be in tight tolerance to one another. For this, my boss had me boar them out vs. drilling it, which would allow tolerances of plus or minus five-tenths (0.0005"). I didn't think it through properly and started to do this with a six flute square endmill, but stopped the machine quick when I heard a low rumble then crunch. It turns out that with that many flutes, there isn't enough room at the bottom to clear the chips properly, and so isn't ideal for cutting down. Thankfully I was leaving a few thou on the walls, so no real harm was done. I came in again with a four flute endmill and got the holes to within three tenths (0.0003").

From there, I used a quarter-inch four flute endmill to cut the part out of the stock using 0.03" step-downs at 30in/min. I did get a bit of chatter when it was cutting the backside of the piece, but I think that maybe because the flood coolant couldn't reach the end of the tool, and so was dry cutting. I then took a 1/8" ball endmill to clear a bunch of the material away to get a chamfer along the edges. I had to use a ball endmill because there were some smaller features that only a ball endmill could reach, and so would have to do the entire contour of the part with a 1/16" ball. There are some tricky areas to this part, which I may recreate to show some of the difficulties I had to deal with. 

Overall the part is coming out looking beautiful, and everything is within 0.0005" (well above acceptable tolerance!), and the finishes are immaculate!

Today I worked on making the fixture plate for the stainless part I am working on (see previous posts).

I got the steel plate to within 0.0005" of its final thickness, which well below what the allowable tolerance is! From there, I drilled the holes in the steel plate to bolt it down later. 

For the fixture plate, I shaved down the top face to ensure I had a flat workpiece, then drilled the holes for threading. I realized too late that I accidentally cut them with a 1/4" drill bit to make 1/4-20 threaded holes, which is much too big for the thread size. Thankfully I was able just to shift the x-axis origin over a bit and recut it with the correct drill bit (#7 drill). I then hand threaded each hole while it was still in the vice using a vertical block my boss made to ensure you cut it vertically. 

I then bolted the steel down on the fixture plate and got the gcode loaded in the machine, this was the part I was nervous about, and triple checked my programming to ensure I didn't have any errors. I set the Haas minimill off, and right away, a hear a dull crunch sound, thankfully I was right there to stop the machine. What had happened was I accidentally set the origins to be slightly different for the fixture plate operation and steel one. It was only about a quarter-inch off, so I didn't realize it in Fusion360, but the tool dived into the material, thinking it was air. 

Unfortunately, it's a more complicated issue than you might think, and I spent a while trying to figure out how I would change the origin since the setup stock wasn't off of solid models and so nothing I could measure. After discussing it with my boss, I relocated the work origin to one of the holes in the steel plate and swept it with a dial indicator. From there, I was able to get the part off and running; I was only able to get through about half of the first tool operation before I ran out of time for the day. 

First off, I want to say a huge thank you to @aye_cnc for helping me through some of the issues I was encountering on the Fusion360 CAM workflow. If you haven't already I, highly suggest checking out his page where he is posting a lot of exciting content on the Pocket NC! 

My previous post on the PNC project was about having issues with the finishing toolpath on the part where I couldn't get the right orientation and selection to get the interior pockets cut. Alex contacted me shortly after and offered to give me a hand, which I gratefully accepted! 

He recorded himself working through and creating sketch planes for each of the pockets and face orientations to select when setting up the toolpaths. I uploaded the video he sent in my previous post, which I am sure you will find valuable! I didn't even know some of the tools he used existed in Fusion360 and will be using them! One of those is the 3D sketch option, where you can turn a 2D sketch into a three dimensional one, very useful for creating sketch guidelines and templates! 

With the sketch outlines, I was able to create the finishing toolpaths very quickly and easily, without having the pain of trying to select geometry on different planes.

I honestly haven't used the constraints very much in the sketching area of Fusion360. After seeing Alex's video, I will be familiarizing myself with each one, for the speed and accuracy it brings!

Monday back to the grind! Today I worked on getting the steel plate down to its final overall thickness. I absolutely love the look of finished stainless! Its got that nice dark look to it with an almost matt shine.

Since this is stainless steel cold rolled (formed through rollers without heat), it's got a lot of tension built up in it, and so when you release the pressure by shaving one side of the plate down, it will bow ever so slightly in that direction. Because of this I need to remove a thin amount of material from both sides to let it breathe. 

The overall part thickness is about 0.46" (can't give exact dimensions), which is too close to 0.5" to use half-inch stock due to the tension in the material. So my boss bought 0.75" stock and had me shave it down to its final thickness by shaving both sides evenly, starting at 0.05" then as it got closer to the correct height, down to 0.02" stepsons, for better accuracy and to ensure a perfectly flat workpiece.

I had to face the material using a 1/2" endmill, which he explained was to reduce the amount of shock and heat it would generate. If you were to use a larger endmill or flymill your contact would be much higher, thus more friction, and so more heat. The run time for each stepdown was 7 minutes each and had about a quarter-inch to remove, so it took about three hours to do. 

While the machine was running, I got to program the rest of the part. It's got a somewhat unusual shape which can't be held in soft jaws because it needs to be contoured, but does have a few through holes which I'll be using to bolt down to a custom fixture plate for it which I'll go more into tomorrow. 

Today I finished cleaning up the front of the shop and office area, then started programming the CAM for a new contract that came in the other day. 

The part is a flat plate in stainless steel with a few threaded holes and locating pins built into it. The stainless we are using is cold rolled, which means there is a lot of surface tension in the material. Just like the small stainless buttons, I worked on a couple of weeks ago, when I removed the part from the soft jaws, it sprung out at me. The same thing will happen with this plate, and so my boss instructed me how to work around it. I was to take 0.02" off of the top and bottom of the stock, then 0.05" facing step-downs evenly until I got the actual height.  By removing the small amount of material first from both sides, it would release the tension in the material and prevent it from bending later on. 

Since there are the locating features on the top face of the plate, it means the overall height of the stock has to be higher to match the highest point in the model, which requires a ton of material removal to leave just the pins. Wayne wanted me to use a parallel facing operation to cut down the material, avoiding the pins. Still, unfortunately, there isn't an option in the facing toolpath to avoid certain areas. So I played around with a few different toolpaths to see what would work best and leave an excellent surface finish. I found that the 2D pocket clearing worked the best, I was able to avoid the pins and have a decent looking path. 

The part has a unique shape, and so I'll be making and using a fixture plate for it and locating pins, which I am excited for!

First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who commented on yesterday's post with the PNC pocketing issues. I was able to solve the problem I was having by changing the operation from a 3D pocket clearing to a 2D pocket clearing. The ramp down was still the same, but it didn't take roughing step-downs and went all the way to the bottom then retracted up in one motion. 

I then started getting into some of the multi-axis portions of the CAM, which got a little complicated. The part has quite a few unique angles that require simulations 5-axis work. For all the flat, curved faces, it was pretty easy to do with a flow toolpath. However, when I got into the contouring for the pockets, I ran into some issues. Typically you would use a swarf toolpath and simply select the top and bottom 2D contours. Except this part doesn't have specifically defined line segments on the interior of the piece, and so you only have one point of contact (the outside parameter of the pocket). I'm somewhat new to simultaneous 5-axis programming; any insight would be greatly appreciated!

I am also using the Pocket NC simulator to check and see the toolpath functions as it should in Fusion360. I ran into some issues when trying to post the gcode where it would keep giving me errors "<post name>.failed", until I figured out it was with the 5-axis flow toolpath, I narrowed it down to the maximum tilt the machine would allow and lowered it from 180deg to 15deg.

Today I spent the entire day at the shop scrubbing the floors to get them to shine!

I was initially tasked with finishing the corner of the shop, where I didn't have time to do a few weeks ago. Still, after doing that with some heavier cleaning supplies (scotch bright and degreaser), it looked too clean compared to the area around it, and so went through and cleaned the rest of the floors. There is quite a contrast with the before and after, and I thought what I did a few weeks ago was good, it was nowhere near what it was today. 

The downside to using the scotch bright is it removes the seal on the floor but was already scratched up so bad it didn't make a huge difference. My boss is going to have me redo all the floors by sanding, polishing, and sealing when the shop gets slow. 

Wayne also got another contract, which I'll be working on tomorrow. It's a large 7"x3"x1/2" plate in stainless with some unusual geometry to work around. 

I'm trying something a bit different from the Pocket NC since I have limited time, and that is to restrict it even further by only allowing myself 30 minutes each day, which will give me time to think about it more and ask the community. 

This part is the first of a set that I am teaming up with @jaelen_hsu to make. I'm using the er40 fixture setup on the PNC with a 1" round aluminum stock. It's got quite a few interesting angles and is going to be a challenge, which I am very excited about!

While programming it (started with adaptive clearing to remove the bulk of the material), I did a pocketing operation with a 1/8" endmill to clean out those holes. However, I noticed that the ramping on it was quite long, and once it reached it's pre-defined stepdown, it would retract and do it all over again. I recorded a short video showing what's happening, and I haven't had a huge amount of time to play around with it. But I do know it's not directly related to the ramping section in the linking tab. If anyone has any insight on this issue or a better way to clear out those pockets, let me know!

Today I was able to finish up making the parts I started earlier this week and get those deburred and cleaned up. I noticed a small mark on the wall of the part which was where the endmill lead out of the contouring toolpath. I should have had it lead out along the line of the wall instead of coming at a 90deg angle horizontally. I was thankfully able to get it cleaned up pretty easily with a light sanding.

These pieces have a couple of holes on them that needed 2m-0.4 threads, which I wrote about having some CAM issues last week, which I solved on the software end of it. However, when I went to go and mill out the threads, I found that they where much too tight, which I kind of figured might happen. I talked to my boss about it, and he suggested creeping up on the thread size by increasing the tip diameter offset one thou at a time. Which I did for about four thou and still nothing, I didn't go higher than this because when I simulated the highest offset value I put, the tool was almost rubbing against the walls of the 1/16" hole. I'm honestly not sure why the thread milling wasn't working and ran out of time to play around with it and had to thread them by hand. 

If anyone has an idea what the reason could be, I'd be much appreciated! Tomorrow I'll spend a few hours on the thread milling and tap drilling with some scrap pieces of aluminum. 

I also had some weird issues with the laptop my boss picked up to work on. The screen would flicker quite a bit, and after googling the problem and updating the windows software, it would get worse! It mostly occurred when running Fusion360 and having a few tabs going taking up a lot of the CPU, and would get to the point where I could only see the screen every couple seconds due to the noise. I called up Dell customer support to see if they had any ideas, but there was quite a bit of confusion over the phone and could hardly understand what they were saying, so I decided just to spend a bit more time researching the issue. After trying a dozen different things, I finally found something that fixed the problem, at least for now. Under the device manager, I deleted the graphics card and rebooted the computer. I then updated windows to get the backup file of the graphics card, and that worked!