Plunge milling

Use the Plunge milling page to remove large amounts of material from a component through a series of vertical plunging movements using a specialised cutting tool. An existing toolpath provides the pattern for the plunge milling toolpath, and an existing stock model defines the current state of the stock.

Toolpath — Select an existing toolpath to provide the pattern for the plunge milling toolpath.

Stock Model — Select a stock model which represents the current state of the stock. This is used to determine the material to remove.

Pull Back Distance — Enter the distance the tool pulls back away from the model to ensure that there are no dwell marks on the part or extraneous cutting moves added.

Note: During plunge milling, the tool is placed under enormous stresses and may cause the tool to be deflected. For this reason, it is often necessary to pull the tool back from the part at the end of each cutting move. This releases the stress and the tool reverts to its original position so you do not get any unexpected cutting moves.

Core Radius — Enter the radius of the central portion of the tool where there are no cutting edges.

Tolerance — Enter a tolerance value to determine how accurately the toolpath follows the contours defined by the stock model.

Thickness — Enter the amount of material to be left on the part. Click the Thickness button to separate the Thickness box in to Radial thickness Axial thickness . Use these to specify separate Radial and Axial thickness as independent values. Separate Radial and Axial thickness values are useful for orthogonal parts. You can use independent thickness on sloping walled parts, although it is more difficult to predict the results.

Radial thickness — Enter the radial offset to the tool. When 2.5-axis or 3-axis machining, a positive value leaves material on vertical walls.

Axial thickness — Enter the offset to the tool, in the tool axis direction only. When 2.5-axis or 3-axis machining, a positive value leaves material on horizontal faces.

Note: To avoid too much material being removed, in area clearance toolpaths, Thickness should be greater than Tolerance.

Component thickness — Click to display the Component thickness dialog, which enables you to specify the thicknesses of the different surfaces.

Stepover — Enter the distance between successive machining passes.

Copy stepover from tool — Click to load the radial depth of cut from the active tool's cutting data. The radial depth of cut is measured normal to the tool axis.

Note: If you enter the value manually, the button changes to .