Activity 9: Machine fillets using pencil milling

In this activity, you will use a Pencil strategy. A 6 mm ball mill is used for the finishing toolpaths, but the fillets between the base and bosses have a radius of 4 mm. Parallel pencil passes are used to machine the fillets.

Part with Horizontal clearing applied to it (left). Part after using Pencil milling for fillets (right).

Prerequisites

• You have applied a Horizontal strategy to machine the base of the part (Activity 8).

Steps

1. From the Pencil dialog, select the 21 - Ø6 mm - ball tool.

   1. On the Manufacture toolbar, Milling tab, select 3D > Pencil .
   2. On the Tool tab , click Select to access the tool library.
   3. Select the 21 - Ø6 mm - ball tool from the Tutorial4 library.
   4. Click Select to close the Select Tool dialog.

2. Specify the machining passes.

   1. Click the Passes tab .

   2. Set Overthickness to 1.2 mm. Note: The Overthickness parameter is used to generate pencil passes where they would not exist for the specified tool. Here the tool radius of 3 mm is smaller than the fillet radius of 4 mm. With Overthickness set to 1.2 mm, the pencil passes are generated for a larger tool radius and used to guide the smaller tool into the fillets.

   3. Set Stepover to 0.03 mm.

   4. Set Number of Stepovers to 5.

   5. Enable the Stock to Leave checkbox.

   6. Set Radial Stock to Leave to 0.05 mm.

   7. Set Axial Stock to Leave to 0.05 mm. This value should update automatically.

   8. Click OK to automatically start calculating the toolpath. A preview appears on the canvas.

      

Activity 9 summary

In this activity, you used a Pencil strategy to machine the fillets of the part.