Activity 9: Pencil cut1

In this activity, we will use use the 3D Pencil strategy to reduce the amount of stock in the corners of the cavity.

By looking at the comparison in the previous step of this tutorial, you can see that the maximum amount of material left is about 1.4 mm. Also, by investigating the model, there are some fillets with a radius of 1.0 mm and some smaller ones of 0.5 mm. This Pencil operation removes most of the material not reachable by the previous tools, by using a 3 mm ball mill.

Prerequisites

• Activity 8 is complete.

Steps

1. Start a new 3D Pencil operation and, from the Tutorial Tools (Metric) library, select the #22 - Ø3 mm R1.5 mm ball tool.

   1. On the Manufacture toolbar, Milling tab, select 3D > Pencil .
   2. On the Tool tab , click Select. This opens the tool library.
   3. In the Tool Library dialog, select Tutorial Tools (Metric).
   4. From the list, select #22 - Ø3 mm R1.5 mm (Ball end mill).
   5. Click Select.

2. Stepover cut value, cut angle.

   1. Click the Passes tab .
   2. Set Stepover to .14 mm.
   3. Set Number of Stepovers to 12.
   4. Click OK to start calculating the toolpath.

Activity 9 summary

In this activity you selected a 3D Pencil finishing operation to clean out the fine corners.

The calculated toolpath is shown below.	The Simulated toolpath is shown below.

The toolpath is shown with a red arrow start, yellow rapid move, green lead in/out move, blue cutting moves and a green arrow at the end.