EZ-MILL PRO

Roughing

The Roughing methods use a horizontal slicing strategy to create machining regions in which a conventional 2.5 axis toolpath is generated. The selected Cut surfaces are offset in 3D by the specified tool then sliced at each Z Step interval. Intersection boundaries resulting from cavities or depressions are treated as pocketing areas, and intersections resulting from protrusions as islands.

• Pocketing – Creates a 2.5 axis offset pocketing toolpath.
• Parallel – Creates a 2.5 axis linear toolpath along a specified angle.
• Plunge –Creates plunge-drilling moves to the underlying surface along a series of rows at a specified angle.

Roughing – Pocketing Toolpath

Solid Model Verification

Re-Roughing

The Re-Roughing methods use a specified, previously created, refer-ence Roughing work step to automatically calculate and create a 2D Rest Curve identifying the uncut regions remaining from the refer-ence work step. A conventional 2.5-axis curve roughing work step is then created and assigned to the Rest Curve and toolpath generated inside each region at the roughing Z Step intervals

• Pocketing – Creates a 2.5 axis offset pocketing toolpath.
• Parallel – Creates a 2.5 axis linear toolpath along a specified angle.

Finishing

The Finishing Methods use three distinct toolpath generation tech-niques as described below.

• • 3D Equidistant – Creates 3D toolpath consisting of a series of on-surface offset passes similar to a pocking style toolpath that propagate from the selected Cut surface edges. Each pass is positioned at a uniform distance from the adjacent pass, regardless of surface slope.

• Constant Z – Ceates 2.5-axis contouring passes at successive Z levels. The selected Cut surfaces are offset in 3D by the specified tool and sliced at each Z Step interval.
• Projection – Creates 3D toolpath by generating a 2D pattern and segmenting it into polylines based on the specified tolerance, then projecting each point to the selected Cut surfaces using the tool shape.

» Pocketing – Creates a 2D offset pocketing pattern.

» Parallel – Creates a 2D linear pattern along a specified angle.

» Radial – Creates a 2D linear pattern between an outer boundary and inner boundary or point.

 

» Longitudinal – Creates a 2D pattern that follows an outer boundary while transitioning into an inner boundary or point.

Re-Finishing

Refinishing method allows areas uncut by a preceding workstep, due to tool size or configuration, to be identified and re-machined using an equidistant toolpath. The Refinishing workstep uses the tool and parameters of a specified reference workstep to compute the uncut area boundaries, then applies an equidistant toolpath to them using the Refinishing workstep tool

Equidistant surface refinishing toolpath at the right side uses the toolpath at the left as reference and cleans up the corners with a smaller refinishing tool.

Pencil Milling

The Wizard now contains a new Pencil Milling method, which generates toolpath to machine all concave surface intersections where the specified tool makes dual contact. This capability is useful for removing material remaining in corners and along fillets in both finish and semi-finishing applications. Multiple Pencil Milling worksteps using progressively smaller tools can be used to trace along part features, gradually removing remaining material.