Mastercam Optirough Stepup Parameters

[crossthread82]

Hey all,

I'm a veteran user of Mastercam but something has been eluding me for quite a while now. When using optirough and I have stepups turned on it always retracts in between each stepup. I would like the tool to "spiral" up the part, constantly engaged in material for the stepups. I've seen it done in videos before but for some reason I can't figure out how to do it, I've tried what I think is every combination of parameters for the toolpath and it won't do what I want. I should also note that I am running mastercam 2022.

Here is a link to a video showing what I'm talking about:
Iscar, Mastercam X9 and Brother Speedio S700 X1 - YouTube

If anybody knows how to do this and can tell me what I have to change I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[goooose]

That's not a single OptiRough toolpath.
OptiRough cannot spiral up. It slices the model and will transition between the slices when needed.
You can see a retract happen at 1:20ish that is the separation of the two toolpaths.

 

[crossthread82]

That's not a single OptiRough toolpath.
OptiRough cannot spiral up. It slices the model and will transition between the slices when needed.
You can see a retract happen at 1:20ish that is the separation of the two toolpaths.

Okay... but if thats just multiple optirough's then shouldn't there be retracts between each step up? Or are you saying that was just 3 different 2d highspeeds with something like a surface rough flowline or waterline between each depth cut? They really should allow optirough to walk up a part or have an angular transition between stepups, or a keep tool down option. The retracts are annoying.

I was assuming he used a single optirough in that video because they were talking about using optirough, but maybe I am mistaken.

 

[goooose]

Ya, buddy doesn't know what's happening in the whole program. Yes OptiRough is being used but so is another path.
Yes, there looks to be a repeat of OptiRough, retract, spiraling toolpath for each of the big step downs.

I don't see much benefit of 'spiraling up' in Optirough. Most parts are not like the demo video here where you could spiral up the whole way without needing to start stepping in towards the next feature. If this is something your cycle times would benefit from, I think the two path workflow is probably best. In the video, all the parameters used in the Optirough are thrown out the window in that spiral up. Guess you just need to decide what's more important in your toolpaths, constant cutter engagement or spiraling.

You can always set your retracts to Min Distance or Min Vert, adjust your clearances, and you should then have minimal retracts between slices.

 

[crossthread82]

There are several features that would be nice to haves that I've thought of over the years that aren't really necessary for most things but... nice to have. Like allowing ramping motion for re-machine contours, or ramping motion for 3d chained contours, then this a keep tool down between stepups would be nice, just use backfeed to reposition since I've found my machines to be faster to just back feed at 1200ipm instead of lifting the tool to reposition. Or allowing to choose primary cutting direction using zigzag under dynamic mill (b/c it likes to spiral out using conventional).

Anyway I digress, I was hoping it was just an option I could enable. But it seems I'll have to add a few more ops to my programs.

 

[Mtndew]

That must be a heavily edited program to eliminate the retracts.
You could email Yamazen in Novi,Michigan and ask them how they did it. If they still have that program.

 

[Marvel]

Toolpath looks similar to CAMWorks 3 Axis Area Clearance tool path. I can set a max cut depth around a "3D" profile and it will cut the max depth cut first and then step up around the profile to smaller Cut Amount setting all in one operation.

It does almost look like in the video its a surfacing tool path spiraling up though like someone said above you can see the retract at 1:20.

 

[dodgin]

That must be a heavily edited program to eliminate the retracts.
You could email Yamazen in Novi,Michigan and ask them how they did it. If they still have that program.

Yeah...very heavily. I do a shit-ton of optiroughing and I've never seen it behave like this. This looks to me like a few optiroughs, each at a single depth, followed by a waterline going back up to the previous depth.

I see in the comments a few people ask about his toolpath parameters when it starts stepping up and he neglected to answer any of them.

 

[Mtndew]

Not only are the retracts gone, but the re-position is gone also.
So either it's heavily edited, or it's a waterline toolpath inserted in or Morph, or a surfacing toolpath. Which is more likely because editing it to eliminate retracts and repositioning would take a long time I would think.

OR

Or there actually is a way to do it that we've yet to figure out, but I've used Optirough a lot and have yet to get it to perform like the video on the step-ups.

 

[dodgin]

Not only are the retracts gone, but the re-position is gone also.
So either it's heavily edited, or it's a waterline toolpath inserted in or Morph, or a surfacing toolpath. Which is more likely because editing it to eliminate retracts and repositioning would take a long time I would think.

OR

Or there actually is a way to do it that we've yet to figure out, but I've used Optirough a lot and have yet to get it to perform like the video on the step-ups.

I tried to get something like the demo on a part I've been working on today, some really simple geometry setting atop a piece, just a boss with a large corner rad between the boss and the floor and a large corner rad on top of the boss. Couldn't ask for a cleaner solid to program to. I couldn't get it to just run up that feature in one tool path.

Now, using 2D dynamic and waterline, I could get a nice smooth group of paths just like what is run in that demo. Even controlling the entry and exit points where the tool is staying contained to one area between paths is gravy doing it that way. And it would be a helluva lot faster than throwing an optirough on it and editing the living piss out of it. I guess there's no telling what lengths someone is willing to go for the sake of a sale though.

I'm curious if Hajicek will chime in on this one. I think he's still running X9, which I didn't run at much length. Maybe in that version it behaves differently? Seems unlikely though that they'd make mincemeat out of what would appear to be a really efficient toolpath, but stranger things have happened I suppose.

 

[Mtndew]

I tried to get something like the demo on a part I've been working on today, some really simple geometry setting atop a piece, just a boss with a large corner rad between the boss and the floor and a large corner rad on top of the boss. Couldn't ask for a cleaner solid to program to. I couldn't get it to just run up that feature in one tool path.

Same, I made a quick model of the part in the video and tried everything I could think of to eliminate the retracts during stepup.
No-go.

 

[BROTHERFRANK]

I have the original MCAM file and NC code for the pyramid demo. PM me if interested.

 

[goooose]

I have the original MCAM file and NC code for the pyramid demo. PM me if interested.

Per Franks forwarded file, its not even OptiRough being used. Its Dynamic Mill. I know, splitting hairs. 2nd toolpath used (doing the spiral up) is Surface Finish Contour. As suspected, the tranisiton between the two paths happens at the retract seen in the video.

Thanks for the file Frank!

 

[dodgin]

Per Franks forwarded file, its not even OptiRough being used. Its Dynamic Mill. I know, splitting hairs. 2nd toolpath used (doing the spiral up) is Surface Finish Contour. As suspected, the tranisiton between the two paths happens at the retract seen in the video.

Thanks for the file Frank!

It's not really splitting hairs when on that first spiral up the narrator says "and this is the beauty of optirough".

 

[Mtndew]

Per Franks forwarded file, its not even OptiRough being used. Its Dynamic Mill. I know, splitting hairs. 2nd toolpath used (doing the spiral up) is Surface Finish Contour. As suspected, the tranisiton between the two paths happens at the retract seen in the video.

Thanks for the file Frank!

That makes perfect sense.
So what do I do with this pitchfork now?

 

[goooose]

It's not really splitting hairs when on that first spiral up the narrator says "and this is the beauty of optirough".

I think this is a glimpse into a lot of the problems in the machine tool world. Not trying to put anybody down here, its just that we can't all be experts at everything and there is often a disconnect between the sales team and the technical teams.

What we see here is a salesperson giving a pitch about a demo. He does his job giving the demo some 'wow factor'. But as usual with sales, they aren't 100% up to speed on the technical side. Flip it around and put an AE on that, not many AE's are great presenters or sellers and a nice machining demo like this could fall flat on its face.

I don't think buddy in the video was intentionally misleading, he just assumed something and was incorrect.
Fun demo video though!

 

[dodgin]

I think this is a glimpse into a lot of the problems in the machine tool world. Not trying to put anybody down here, its just that we can't all be experts at everything and there is often a disconnect between the sales team and the technical teams.

What we see here is a salesperson giving a pitch about a demo. He does his job giving the demo some 'wow factor'. But as usual with sales, they aren't 100% up to speed on the technical side. Flip it around and put an AE on that, not many AE's are great presenters or sellers and a nice machining demo like this could fall flat on its face.

I don't think buddy in the video was intentionally misleading, he just assumed something and was incorrect.
Fun demo video though!

I will not be swayed by your anti-cynic rhetoric.

 

[IninefingersI]

This is kind of the machining version of a commercial showing a delicious juicy cheeseburger and, when you buy it, it looks like someone was carrying it in their back pocket.

 

[BROTHERFRANK]

The video is cringeworthy. The demo was a hit at Westec though. We ran it in steel on a 27k spindle Speedio with an aluminum demo next to it. Got a lot of interest. Right across the aisle was an expensive small "high speed" machine taking tiny cuts in aluminum. They hated our demo.

 

[gkoenig]

Bejesus - I remember that demo years ago. Rick is also known as Iscar Rick and did a bunch of videos many years ago. So he is an AE and not a salesman, but for Iscar and not MasterCAM.

Of course, right after I call Goose out for being a miserable cynic... this comes along and turns ME into a miserable cynic

I was always impressed by thinking OptiRough was actually this good!