Drilling strategy

The Drilling category on the Strategy Selector dialog defines how the model will be machined during drilling or threading.

Selecting one of the options from this dialog and then clicking on the OK button does one of two things:

• If you select a Method, PowerMill creates a batch toolpath and displays the Drilling Methods dialog.

  The Drilling Method list includes some basic methods. You can create your own methods to suit your particular way of working.

• If you select a Strategy, PowerMill creates a batch toolpath and displays a Drilling dialog which defines which holes to drill and how to drill them

The drilling strategies are:

• Break chip — A multiple peck strategy which drills holes in several stages retracting a small amount after each peck.
• Counter bore — Drills holes as a second boring cycle (G86).
• Deep drill — A multiple peck strategy.
• Drilling — The general drilling strategy. Use to generate your own drilling cycle.
• Fine boring — A multiple peck strategy. This is an alternative to Deep Drilling, so may be used for machines with a variety of deep drilling cycles.
• Helical — Bores out a large hole with a small tool using trochoidal moves.
• Profile — Drills a large hole with a small tool using circular moves.
• Ream — Drills holes as the first boring cycle (G85).
• Rigid tapping — Drills holes with a Peck depth and a Pitch.
• Single peck — Drills holes in one operation.
• Tapping — Drills holes in one direction and reverses out.
• Thread mill — A drilling cycle similar to reverse helical but with improved leads in and out for thread creation.

For more information on the Strategy Selector dialog, see Toolpath Strategies.

The common tabs are described in common toolpath strategy pages.

Note: Before outputting any drilling toolpaths please ensure that your postprocessor is configured to support drilling.

Note: You can create a Drilling template and select your Drilling cycle option from the template.

Note: The options you select on the Drilling dialog (including the state of the Use Drilling Cycles) are also selected on the NC program dialog by default. You can change the drilling options on the NC program dialog.