Getting started with SmartCAM


SmartCAM Production Milling Trial: Task 3 ‐ Add Island Avoidance

 

Task 3

Add Island Avoidance

to the Pocketing Process

 

You are able to carry out this next action by clicking on toolpath in the graphics view, but we will use the opportunity to introduce another important user interface concept, the SmartCAM List View.

Expand the content of the STEP by left-clicking on the + symbol that is to the left of the Step 10: entry at the bottom of the list view.

Right-click on the Pocket process within the step then left-click on the Container option.

( That’s the bit that you could also do in the graphics view, by right-clicking on any of the toolpath in the process. )

Left-click on the Recall command and you will have retrieved the pocket process, populated with the settings used when it was created.

 

Now select the entire pocket profile.

Set a profile group select mode by left-clicking the profile group select icon on the group select toolbar.

 

The icon will change to an active appearance.

Add the obround island profile to the Active Group by left-clicking any one of the elements that form it.

 

Elements in the active group are displayed in an attractive shade of orange. You can change that color if you prefer something different.

Avoidance of the elements in the active group by the pocketing process is an optional setting.

Let’s make sure that it is enabled.

Left-click on More… button in the Recall panel to open the Pocket Parameters

 

 

Ensure that the Avoid Grouped Islands checkbox is checked. It can be toggled on and off by left-clicking the checkbox or the Avoid Grouped Islands text alongside it.

Left-click Accept on the Pocket Parameters panel to close it.

 

 

Left-click the Regen button on the Pocket panel.

The toolpath will be modified to avoid the island feature.

Left-click Accept on the Pocket panel to commit the change you have made to the pocket process.

 

We touched on a couple of important key SmartCAM concepts while creating that last task.

Some of the things you are able to do in the List View are:

‐ Move the insert position (the position at which the tasks you add are inserted, represented by ------------) by holding down a left-click on it and dragging it or by right-clicking on the entry at which you wish to insert tasks either before or after.

‐ Re>‐sequence content by dragging, that is holding down a left-click on the item you wish to move. You can, for example, rearrange toolpath elements and toolpath processes within STEPS or move entire STEPS. Additional resequencing functions are also available in SmartCAM.

The Active Group: We could take up a lot of your time telling you about the active group. But suffice it to say that a fundamental of SmartCAM is that you can establish an active group and then do something using it.

That something might be, for example, a toolpath modeling function, delete, move, rotate, copy, re>‐ sequence, flip from CAD to CAM or from CAM to CAD and so much more besides.

The Group Select Toolbar contains icons to set the selection mode: individual items, the profile select you have used, entire layers or steps, elements associated with a specific work plane and more. You remove items from the active group by holding down the Ctrl key while using a given selection tool.

A neat technique is to save the active group as a named group, so that the group can easily be recalled rather than needing to be reselected if later functions are to be applied to the same group of elements.

Process Containers / Containers: SmartCAM containers can hold CAD layer elements or toolpath elements or toolpath processes. User containers can be created.

You used a regeneration method on an existing process container. In addition to being able to regenerate containers, most CAD and CAM elements in the SmartCAM model can be modified by right-clicking on them.

SmartCAM users are able to unpack container content, resulting in the expanded content being available in the List View. The reason that you may want to do that is so that you can if necessary modify any of the individual elements to precise needs.

We don’t propose that you experiment with any of those features at this point, we just wanted to make you aware of those key concepts.

 

Great!! You have learned how regenerable processes can be used to modify an existing toolpath process.

Verify the results and / or generate CNC code if you wish. As a reminder, you can get details about Verification by clicking here.

That completes Task 3. Next up: Rough those open outer regions.

Click this link to open Rough the Open Outer Regions.