Lesson 6 – Simple 2.5D Machining – Tutorial #1

lead-in lead-out alphacam

Lead-In Lead-out in Alphacam


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Go back to Roll Round XY Corners.

alphacam tutorial

Let’s have a look to tool-in and tool-out. It is not good.

At the beginning, let’s change how the tool will approach to the material.

Edit the rough or finish operation (it should call FINISH PASS on operations list). And select Lead-In/Out tab.

To add some lead-in or lead-out select Apply Auto Lead In/Out option.

We have separate sections for Lead-in and Lead-out but there is the same options.

Expand the menu with default option None and select Line option.

Fill as shown below. Change Approach Angle to 0 degree.

In the same way we could change parameters for Lead-out or we can simply copy parameters from Lead-in section by clicking double arrow button.

Click OK to accept and let’s have a look our toolpaths.

It is better but still not good enough.

Another way to improve this it is change XY Corners to Straight.

There is quite good lead-in and lead-out but we are loosing speed in XY corners because of sudden change of cutting direction.

Ok, let’s back to Roll Round XY Corners and show Ghost Tools (Ctrl+G).

Now we are going to change the place of ghost tool, place where tool starts to machine the material.

From the Edit tab select the Start Pt command.

From the Command Line select Mid-Point snap.

And select the mid-point of the lower longer edge (just place mouse cursor near the middle point, the snap tag should appear and click LMB).

The ghost tool for this contour should change place.

Another change appeared. The description of the operation that used this outline changed to blue.

It means that the operation should be updated. Click RMB on this operation and from drop down menu select Update.

Now the toolpaths should look like in the picture below.

When we change the view of the isometric view, we’ll see that the tool-in and tool-out are still not good enough.

But we can easily change it. Check the next lesson.
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