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Hi there. So with this video we're going to be covering the drilling and slotting operations as well as some bore cleanup as well. So first things first we're going to zoom in and take a bit of a look at what it is we're going to be working on. We are going to be pre-drilling both radius points on these slots and then we're going to be using a 2D contouring path to clean out the content of them.
So to do so we're going to add a new operation under holes we're going to go with hole machining. Now because we were previously inside a multiply group we are going to need to move some of these around a little bit which does mean we're going to lose this operation definition to start with. However we have to do this because otherwise this hole machining is going to be subject to the same constraints applied to the 2d contouring previously for clearing out the castellations. which is not something we want on this.
So we're going to grab this move it above the multiply group close the multiply group and then move this below it. Now as you can see here that's now cleaned out this node which means that it needs recalculating. So we're going to regenerate that toolpath let it have a think about it and then we're going to get to hole machining whilst that's finishing itself up. First thing we're going to do is we're going to select the correct tool.
So we're going to go and get the 8mm drill that's part of our tool selection suite. Select tool for the operation. Now we need to define the center points for each of these radiuses and there's a bit of a trick to this. So first thing we're going to do is we're going to turn off the fixture and the machine visibility so we can see the part as cleanly as possible.
We're going to click on top to get a perfectly perpendicular view of what's going on here and we are going to go into job assignments and we're going to use the normal selection tool for this. Now normals are generally defined as being a perpendicular vector off a surface in a 3d file. We're using it slightly differently. We're going to use it to indicate where the center point of these radiuses lies.
So turn on the normal tool and you can see here automatically we've got one defined there and here and here and here. So we now have these four normals defined. I figure whilst we're still here as well we might as well get the center point of these bores as well because well if we're going to be doing drilling we might as well do all the drilling in one go. and I'm going to turn off the normal tool again afterwards once I'm done with it.
You do need to make sure that you turn it back off. That's the same with any of the polyline or spline tools as well. You will need to switch it back off otherwise you're going to end up with a whole bunch of stuff all over the place that you didn't intend to put there. Okay radial center points.
Click on center for those and then we're going to grab these four separately and we're going to click on center for those. So we now know the first four pertain to these slots and the last four pertain to these bores. Okay so in doing so we are now going to take a look at these four and we're going to move the camera view around to the side and we're going to turn it. so we can see what the relevant heights in question are for these.
Now these are the taller slots so we're going to need to change those values a little bit because at the moment they're in a slightly useless place for us. So we want to move z max to let's have a look at minus 14. That's not quite enough so minus 10. That's about right so that means that our drill tip is going to start here and then work its way down but we want this to be below this point and given the angling of the drill bit we ideally want it to notably below this point.
So if we go with minus 26 that takes us all the way down. Okay so that gives us a nice 16mm drilling bore there to work with that. So we're going to click on okay for that and for these four we're going to go back to properties and we want to make sure that our z_min again is minus 26. but the z max doesn't need to be that far it only needs to be about here so we can take a look at minus 14.
Let's go with minus yeah minus 14 is a good start for that so let's click on okay for that. So we've now got all of our drilling point heights defined okay because as I say these last four ones accommodate the outer bores these ones accommodate the bores for the slots. The next thing we need to do is we need to take a look in strategy at what the drilling type we're using is. Now for the sake of my own sanity I tend to go with chip removing because it's a nice pecking cycle that clears out everything that's in a bore that's being drilled it's just what I prefer.
For the step again because I'm a little bit conservative on maintaining the tool life I'm going to go with 50% of tool diameter so that's a 4mm step down on each of those. which might seem a little excessive but yeah tool breakage is never much fun. So now I'm going to generate that tool path and we can see that looks pretty convincing so far we've got our various bores being drilled there that's all good so if we turn on fixture. and machine visibility again and we simulate what we've got going on here so we need to reset and then simulate up to current operation and now we're going to click on run.
and we're going to see what our drilling hop looks like. So yeah that's pretty much as expected we've got a nice clean drilling cycle going on there no horrible interactions no intersections works exactly as advertised. can't really complain about that. So let's just speed that up that looks good so now we can start taking a look at our slotting operations.
so if we go back into the machining tab now we are going to add an operation 2d contouring we are going to select the correct tool. because for some reason it's decided the conical mill is the right one for this which it's not we're going to select the six millimeter cylindrical select the tool for the operation and we're going to go back to job assignment. and we're going to grab this curve and this curve and we're going to tell it those are the curves we're interested in we are going to define a top level but not a bottom level. because by not defining a bottom level it means it goes all the way through the material as opposed to worrying about where the model stops.
so that's pretty much ideal for us the next thing I'm going to do is under strategy I am going to go for helical machining because again it's just generally on the tool I am going to also set the depth of cut to 50% because otherwise it might start complaining about plunges. because again it's just generally on the tool I am going to also set the depth of cut to 50 because otherwise it might start complaining about plunges. and I'm going to make sure that each of these starting points for the toolpath are actually in an area of clear bore okay or at least as close to as possible. because we don't really want to be pre-loading our tool if we can avoid it so now that we've done that we can click on generate toolpath and there's no complaints there.
so we can simulate this at this point just to be certain I'm going to leave it running fairly fast because a it will tell us straight away if there's a problem there. and b it's not really a huge amount to look at on this one it's literally just zigzagging his way down a curved slot but that generally seems quite happy which is excellent news for us. so we're now going to clean out the last of these bores and to do so I am going to uh I'm going to cheat a little bit okay. so instead of going through the process of defining a 2d contouring operation from scratch each and every time what you can do is you can right click and duplicate and that basically what you've just done.
so all we really need to do now is grab and eliminate these curves let's get rid of those. and we want to grab the bottom curve of these four bores let's just angle that slightly grab that one and. then set those as curves that's great so far we are going to want to set a bottom level for these and we're going to want to set a top level for these as well. and we're going to need to make sure that we've got compensation turned on because at the moment it seems to have switched compensation off so here are the controls for this this is.
which side of the line um is the machining side so we want to make sure that's flipped around and this is whether or not compensation is turned on or off because we want to make sure that's the case as well and. then we're going to go into strategy just to double check everything so we've got helical machining at 50% that's pretty good that's ideal so we're now going to generate the toolpath and that seems pretty happy. so far great next thing we need to do is we're going to simulate and then we're going to do the same again just to clear out that lower bore as well whilst we're at it okay. so we are now going to go to simulation let it rip.
and yep that's done exactly what we wanted it to we've got a nice green node representation there which is great so we're going to go into machining again. and we're grab the previous operation that we've just worked on and we're going to duplicate that again going to go back into job assignment we're going to grab all of these details and delete them. and yeah it's kind of rinse and repeat at this point really. so let's grab all these those are our curves this is our top level we're.
not fussed about doing a bottom level because we want it to go all the way through if we can we do need to reset the machining sides and we want to turn compensation back on for these. so that will give us quite a tight little path there we want to make sure that we're still at 50 percent or three mil and that we've still got helical machining turned on which we do which is great and we're going to generate toolpaths based on that. and we're going to simulate them and we should hopefully have a nice happy result just like that. which is perfect that pretty much sees us through for the entirety of this yeah that's the end of making sure that all of the slotting is good and ready to go as well as cleaning up all of the relevant bores.
so I shall see you in the next video where we're going to look at things like edge finishing and chamfering catch you then.