Speaker 1: Hi and welcome back.
In our First part of getting
started with SOLIDWORKS CAM We
looked at how to define and
machine and how to set up our
part ready for adding tool
paths. And this episode, we're
going to have a look at
extraction machineable features
to generate tool paths as well
as manually creating them as
well. So let's get started.
Again we'll go straight to the
SOLIDWORKS CAM toolbar. We're
going to go and press extract
machineable features. This will
go and search your parts for any
features that can be found such
as a face feature. The perimeter
on the outside the pockets
that'd be found on the interior,
a different pocket and a series
of holes there. These all need
to be machined. We can also see
that these are a abbreviation at
the end of them. The face
feature say, finish the
perimeter, say rough finish. And
these are what we call
strategies. And these that are
default strategies that have
been saved inside the technology
database for now. We won't open
that, but we will reference it
later on. What we can find then
it will allow us to click
generate operation plan. And
this will take information that
we've put into our technology
database about predefined
operations, and it will add
them. And you can see now its
going to use a face mill and end
mill, and then a series of
drills at the end. In the
previous episode,
we assign tools we can see now
we've got a warning message
here. If I right click and go
watch wrong, We can see now I
didn't add a face mill and it's
telling me there's a warning to
say, we've had to add one
because you wants a face with
it. I could go and change it. So
it's using one of the end mills
I picked previously, or I might
think, yes, I do have one of
those and clear the warning
message, but it will always stop
you from making that mistake of
selecting a tool you don't have.
From here, let's go and generate
toolpath and this will go and
set those tool paths that will
be made. And you can see here
the face mill is looking great
we can move down and see what
operations are done and how they
are done. And we could see
actually, we've got one thats
not calculated here. I look at
the one before it, you can see
the operations being calculated
and the one after it, the
finishing has been done. So
there was no need for this. And
if we look at this one, it was
the rough, rough rest and finish
cycle. Since we don't need to
rest, finish, we can go and
delete the tool path. What will
happen is it will go into the
recycle bin and what we can do
if needs be is restore it at any
time. Now we have our tool paths
let's
simulate them. In simulation we
can check if they're doing what
we want and you can see I've got
the speed quite high to see
exactly what's going off. We can
see from the perimeter, it's
going right down to the bottom.
So I may need to change that,
well apart from that, and the
facing works really well. And we
can see the pockets now, just
starting to go well from here,
you can see there's a lot of
moves on the top face. This is
also something you might want to
have a look look at because it's
wasted time for us machining, it
wasn't cutting anything. Well,
as we go through the rest of the
part, we can see it's roughing
and finishing exactly how we
want the parts to be and once
this is completed. We can also
go and see if there's any stock
leftover that we might need to
machine, which is a really handy
tool, especially when you've got
lots of operations to them for
you straight away, like
SOLIDWORKS CAM does. And you can
see here, the drilling finishes
the job off. So if I move, I
click the button, show
difference. We can see here, we
have machine, that part in its
entirety. There's just a few
tweaks that need to be done. The
first for the depth from the
outside, the second to stop the
spare machining on top, because
that's not what we need in this
application. The
first one you can see is in with
mill here, there are two ways we
can do this, but my preferred
way is going back to the
features and we can see, we have
perimeter open pockets. These
are editable at any time, or we
can see the end condition is
bottom of stock. I can simply
click bottom of parts and press
tick. And then this will go and
change the tool pack to suit We
can also go and recalculate it
if we wish to as well. The other
option we need to change is if I
go and look down, the tool path
list. We can see rough mill 4,
Here We can see there's these
extra passes being done on the
flats at the top by double
clicking a tool path. We can go
and change any of the parameters
we wish. In here we can go to
roughing and we can see that
machine Island top is selected.
I can choose to turn off. I
could also turn off the change.
The first quarter Mount at the
max puts them out. And any, you
have a parameter if I wish you
to here, but by simply clicking,
okay, you can see that goes
recalculates to give us a tool
path that we want. So now we're
happy with the changes. Let's go
in, simulate them. I could go
and press the simulator up at
the top, but if I just want to
see one operation done, I
can get that as well by right,
clicking on holding shift down
and clicking simulates. We can
see it will rebuild all of the
other tool paths done previously
and give us the rough stock
That's a really handy tool. If
we only want to see part of the
job, we can see there's been a
lip left on from where we
reassigned the depth on the part
perimeter, If I press run now,
we'll see you starts cutting
around the contours of the
pockets straight away, rather
than finishing off the Island
sock that we could see there.
That's got exactly what we
needed. So if I press the tick
on that, that will give me
exactly what I wanted, so to
finish off this part, we might
want to de bur the edges that we
may have caused from machining.
This can be done and is a great
way to show you how to make a
manual tool path. I'm going to
right click on mill parts. set
up one, and pick two and a half
axis feature. In here, I can
choose which ever I wanted a
pocket profile and so on and so
forth. I want to get a curve
feature. And this instance, I'm
gonna click auto select edges
for chamfering in here
SOLIDWORKS CAM we'll do the hard
work for me. I pick the edges as
you can see in blue, that I
might want to machine If I
didn't want one, I could simply
just tick it and
then it would get rid of it. I
can then go and pick an end
condition and we can see here,
the chamfer I want would be 10
millimeters. I will want that to
be one millimeter so Ill change
that. But from there, if I press
the tick, that's got me, my
curve feature and edge break. I
can go and then make it two and
a half axis operation, which you
can see, it will get for me. And
you can see for now. I don't
have a chamfer mill to use
that's. I could click add new
and then go and get myself a
chamfer mill so I can go a
machine that. So if I get a
counter sink I'll get the five
mill and click Okay. It knows
the feature I'm going to use. If
we press tick on here, you can
see now its got a contor mill
for us. I can then go and pick
the chamfer machining it be
apex, or indeed the outer edge.
It gives you a really nice
preview to which one it would
be, In our case would pick apex
because we don't have any of the
champers modeled in our model.
So from there, if I click, okay,
and then go and click generate
tool path, we can see there. Now
it's going to go and grab all of
those for us as we want. I can
then go and simulate that's
again, to just double check. I'm
getting exactly what I want. And
you can see there, it's gone
round and picked all the edges.
To finish We can get the code
for the machine by it's in
post-process. We could call
lists whatever we wish. So this
might be a mill op1 click save,
and this will go then run
through the posted output for
us. This goes and generates all
the code that we might want in a
really handy way. You can also
go and set that the software
will open the NC editor so we
can preview the tool path thats
going to be used on the machine
and by clicking, okay. This
loads up and you can see, we get
show exactly what we want. We
can choose what type of code it
is in this case ISO milling and
it will give us color coding
depending on if we're rapid in
feeding in, or if it's a tool
change, we can also go to back
plots and back plot the window,
and we can see there it gives us
a true representation of the G
code of what we're going to run.
And this also can be simulated
as well to check that SOLIDWORKS
CAM is tying up the code that's
being outputted as well. It's a
really handy and really useful
to do a double check of all the
machine components. I hope this
has been useful for you and
thank you for watching.