Hello All,
First post, but have been reading on the forum for many months. I have had my Journeyman for several months and created many projects with great success. I do not have a CAM or CNC background but I am able to design, maybe too well, in CAD and struggle trying to figure out how to machine these designs. I am using Fusion 360 and have a handful of tapered, v bit and spiral end mils.
The current project I am working on I would like to carve a bat out of about 26"x13" oak with a blank painted face and engrave text and logo on the face to expose the wood beneath.
I setup the text with an engrave 30 degree v bit fairly easily.
My problem comes with the larger section and around the text. The best solution I have come to so far is using a 1/8 spiral in a 2d pocket path, then 1/16 tapered ball nose pocket, 1/32 tapered ball nose adaptive clearing, finally a .5mm tapered ball nose adaptive clearing with rest machining. Just for the “World Watchers” text is over an hour carving and I know there has to be a better approach.
I understand some of the detail can not be accomplished with the round bits, and I am really just looking to carve a little off the top to expose the natural grain under the black paint.
I also understand this question maybe better posted in a CAM specific forum not the Onefinity, but this is the start of my CNC journey.
This is not the sort of design I usually work on so I cannot give specifics but one thing that strikes is the number of paths. Four different bits to cut the design may be overkill.
Usually I have one path with a medium-sized bit and one with the finishing bit is faster then going through many intermediate steps.
I do use Fusion, and in a situation like this, I would try and use a 1/8" pocket, followed by a 1/16" pocket. I would then use a V-Bit with REST machining with an engrave tool path to clean up the remaining.
Might not be the most efficient, but its what I would do.
Another thing that can really chew up time on small bits is having too much z heigh in vertical moves. It shows up in a number of areas like the heights tab, vertical lead in, spiral heights, etc. on whatever the rightmost tab is.
To see if this is effecting your times, change one, click ok, and see how much of a change you get. Rinse, repeat. You don’t want to change all at the same time, screw up the cam, and have to delete and redo the whole came
It may not seem like much, but a 0.05 lead-in is a long time at 50 IPM x every z retract x every stepover, plunge, lead in, etc.
Thanks all for the feedback. I was able to play around with it for a little and get the time down to about 46 minutes for everything which is better. I’m sure there is still room for improvement and I will continue to play with all these settings that you all recommended. I ended up going with 1/4” down cut, 1/16” down cut, .5mm diameter tapered, and 30-degree v bit. The longest single path was the 1/16” at about 13 minutes.
Ran into a problem with my first run and thought I programed it for a 1/8 and not the 1/16 and ended up cutting over my designed. Planned it down more, repainted, and did it right.
Thanks for your help!
