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Any referenced datasets can be downloaded from "Module downloads" in the module overview.
Transcript
00:08
At this point in our lesson, we've imported a solid model, setup our stock, handled machining preparation, and recognized all the 2.5D features and surface milling features for our part.
00:20
With our features completely programmed, we're ready to simulate what we've created and make any necessary revisions.
00:27
Like always, let's start out with a centerline simulation.
00:38
As you can see, this project is a little bit more complicated than the last.
00:42
It's a little bit difficult to tell what's going on with our centerline simulation since we have so much toolpath.
00:48
In a case such as this, if I want to see the toolpath for an individual feature, I'll often go to the Operations List on the results fly-out on the right hand side of our user interface and I’ll select a specific operation for a given feature.
01:01
So for example, here I'm just going to select rough pass 1 for boss 1.
01:06
You'll see that as I select that, all of the other toolpath goes away
01:10
and I'm left with just the visual centerline representation of that rough pass 1.
01:15
This works the same for all of our operations and can be very helpful in visualizing the toolpath for a given operation.
01:23
Now that we've run our centerline, let's run a quick 3D simulation and see if we have any gouges in the part.
01:33
Looks like we made it to the machining with no gouges, so if we'd like, we could definitely send NC Code to our machine right now.
01:39
However, let's dig a little bit deeper into this part and make a few revisions.
01:45
In our previous lesson, we first changed the finish allowance for all of our milling features.
01:51
As you may recall, roughing operations in FeatureCAM leave a finish allowance of 50 thousandths.
01:57
This is the material that will be left for the finishing operation to clean up.
02:01
In the last exercise, we brought this down to a value of 10 thousandths for each of our features, which I imagine a lot of you will want to do in the real world.
02:10
Now, in a part such as this, we have a lot of features and changing the finish allowance for each feature is really going to take a long time.
02:18
So instead, let's take a look at how we could change the finish allowance globally for the entire part.
02:25
Open the machining attributes by navigating to our Part View on the left side of our interface and you'll find machining attributes under Standard_3, double click to open it.
02:37
And here we can see our Machining Attributes window opens up.
02:41
Now here, now you've heard me mentioned a few times in this course, FeatureCAM’s built-in intelligence and automation.
02:49
What I really mean by that is FeatureCAM’s machining attributes.
02:53
As we dig through this machining attributes page, you'll notice a whole lot of parameters.
02:58
This machining attributes is where FeatureCAM pulls its default behavior from.
03:03
So, for example, let's go into the mill heading and find the stepover page.
03:09
Here if you look closely, you'll notice that in our finish pass, we have an allowance section, sets of 50 thousandths.
03:16
This is exactly where our default finish allowance is being pulled from.
03:21
So I'm going to quickly exit out of my machining attributes, open up this first boss feature, go to the roughing operation milling tab, and here we can see there's that finish allowance, 50 thousandths.
03:33
Now let's go back to the machining attributes.
03:36
Navigate to the stepover page and let’s change this allowance to 10 thousandths.
03:43
Once I've entered in the new allowance, select "OK" and let's go right back to that boss feature.
03:51
You'll notice that the finish allowance changed to 10 thousandths.
03:54
And as I stepped through my part, every single one of these features is now going to have a new finish allowance of 10 thousandths.
04:02
So by making this change once in my machining attributes, I've been able to change the finish allowance for every single feature in my part.
04:11
We just utilized the machining attributes to make a global change to our entire document.
04:17
It's important to realize that FeatureCAM’s built-in intelligence and automation are coming from our machining attributes.
04:24
Any default behavior that we do not specifically define at the time that a feature is created is being taken from our machining attributes.
04:32
It is also important to understand the difference between machining attributes and machining configurations.
04:38
You may recall, we've seen machining configurations mentioned when we were creating new documents.
04:43
Anything we change in the machining attributes only affects this open document.
04:50
This means that while we just changed the finish allowance in our machining attributes for this document, if I were to close this part and import a new document, I would see that the finish allowance default goes right back to 50 thousandths.
05:04
Anything we change in the machining attributes only affects the opened document.
05:09
If you would like to change the default behavior for every document that you open going forward, we'll need to make that change in the Machining Configuration section and set it as your initial configuration when opening a new document.
05:23
It is common practice to create multiple configurations for various materials, machines, or operators, as not every material machine or operator requires the same machining behavior.
05:35
People have different preferences and different materials require different approaches to machining.
05:41
So before we go and set the machining configuration, feel free to dig through our machining attributes.
05:47
And again, if at any point you see a parameter that isn't immediately obvious, I strongly recommend that you use the Help feature.
05:55
Feel free to pause the video now and dig through those machining attributes.
06:02
Now that you have a better idea of the machining attributes, let's go and set our attributes that we've set to a machining configuration.
06:09
So we just set in the stepover tab our finish allowance value.
06:14
With that set, let's close out our machining attribute and in the Part View to above we’ll find machining configurations.
06:22
Double click that to open up the machining configurations window.
06:27
Now, we just made a change to this document's machining attributes and we'd like to save that as a configuration for when we open future documents.
06:36
That way we won't have to keep changing the finish allowance.
06:39
So to do this, let's create a new configuration by selecting the new button in the upper right corner of the window.
06:47
Let's name this new configuration.
06:49
For this one, just for example, I'm going to call it My default aluminum configuration.
06:60
And I’ll simply select this anytime I open a part where I know I'll be machining aluminum.
07:06
We’ll indicate that we want FeatureCAM to copy all of the attributes for this new configuration from our current document's machining attributes.
07:13
So Standard_3, select "OK".
07:18
And now we can see that configuration pops up in our available configurations.
07:24
We can even make this our new default configuration every single time we open up a new document by going down to initial configuration for new documents and selecting My default aluminum configuration.
07:37
We've now essentially created a template of our machining attribute preferences and told FeatureCAM to always use this configuration for new documents.
07:46
It's a good idea to spend some time customizing your machining configurations early on when you start programming in FeatureCAM, and maybe a little bit of work and learning upfront.
07:57
But this will definitely end up saving you a lot of time in the future by eliminating the need to make the same changes over and over again in a given part.
08:06
Now that we've created that configuration, making the change to the finish allowance for not only all the features in this part, but all of the features in our new parts going forward, let's run a final 3D simulation to post our final code.
Video transcript
00:08
At this point in our lesson, we've imported a solid model, setup our stock, handled machining preparation, and recognized all the 2.5D features and surface milling features for our part.
00:20
With our features completely programmed, we're ready to simulate what we've created and make any necessary revisions.
00:27
Like always, let's start out with a centerline simulation.
00:38
As you can see, this project is a little bit more complicated than the last.
00:42
It's a little bit difficult to tell what's going on with our centerline simulation since we have so much toolpath.
00:48
In a case such as this, if I want to see the toolpath for an individual feature, I'll often go to the Operations List on the results fly-out on the right hand side of our user interface and I’ll select a specific operation for a given feature.
01:01
So for example, here I'm just going to select rough pass 1 for boss 1.
01:06
You'll see that as I select that, all of the other toolpath goes away
01:10
and I'm left with just the visual centerline representation of that rough pass 1.
01:15
This works the same for all of our operations and can be very helpful in visualizing the toolpath for a given operation.
01:23
Now that we've run our centerline, let's run a quick 3D simulation and see if we have any gouges in the part.
01:33
Looks like we made it to the machining with no gouges, so if we'd like, we could definitely send NC Code to our machine right now.
01:39
However, let's dig a little bit deeper into this part and make a few revisions.
01:45
In our previous lesson, we first changed the finish allowance for all of our milling features.
01:51
As you may recall, roughing operations in FeatureCAM leave a finish allowance of 50 thousandths.
01:57
This is the material that will be left for the finishing operation to clean up.
02:01
In the last exercise, we brought this down to a value of 10 thousandths for each of our features, which I imagine a lot of you will want to do in the real world.
02:10
Now, in a part such as this, we have a lot of features and changing the finish allowance for each feature is really going to take a long time.
02:18
So instead, let's take a look at how we could change the finish allowance globally for the entire part.
02:25
Open the machining attributes by navigating to our Part View on the left side of our interface and you'll find machining attributes under Standard_3, double click to open it.
02:37
And here we can see our Machining Attributes window opens up.
02:41
Now here, now you've heard me mentioned a few times in this course, FeatureCAM’s built-in intelligence and automation.
02:49
What I really mean by that is FeatureCAM’s machining attributes.
02:53
As we dig through this machining attributes page, you'll notice a whole lot of parameters.
02:58
This machining attributes is where FeatureCAM pulls its default behavior from.
03:03
So, for example, let's go into the mill heading and find the stepover page.
03:09
Here if you look closely, you'll notice that in our finish pass, we have an allowance section, sets of 50 thousandths.
03:16
This is exactly where our default finish allowance is being pulled from.
03:21
So I'm going to quickly exit out of my machining attributes, open up this first boss feature, go to the roughing operation milling tab, and here we can see there's that finish allowance, 50 thousandths.
03:33
Now let's go back to the machining attributes.
03:36
Navigate to the stepover page and let’s change this allowance to 10 thousandths.
03:43
Once I've entered in the new allowance, select "OK" and let's go right back to that boss feature.
03:51
You'll notice that the finish allowance changed to 10 thousandths.
03:54
And as I stepped through my part, every single one of these features is now going to have a new finish allowance of 10 thousandths.
04:02
So by making this change once in my machining attributes, I've been able to change the finish allowance for every single feature in my part.
04:11
We just utilized the machining attributes to make a global change to our entire document.
04:17
It's important to realize that FeatureCAM’s built-in intelligence and automation are coming from our machining attributes.
04:24
Any default behavior that we do not specifically define at the time that a feature is created is being taken from our machining attributes.
04:32
It is also important to understand the difference between machining attributes and machining configurations.
04:38
You may recall, we've seen machining configurations mentioned when we were creating new documents.
04:43
Anything we change in the machining attributes only affects this open document.
04:50
This means that while we just changed the finish allowance in our machining attributes for this document, if I were to close this part and import a new document, I would see that the finish allowance default goes right back to 50 thousandths.
05:04
Anything we change in the machining attributes only affects the opened document.
05:09
If you would like to change the default behavior for every document that you open going forward, we'll need to make that change in the Machining Configuration section and set it as your initial configuration when opening a new document.
05:23
It is common practice to create multiple configurations for various materials, machines, or operators, as not every material machine or operator requires the same machining behavior.
05:35
People have different preferences and different materials require different approaches to machining.
05:41
So before we go and set the machining configuration, feel free to dig through our machining attributes.
05:47
And again, if at any point you see a parameter that isn't immediately obvious, I strongly recommend that you use the Help feature.
05:55
Feel free to pause the video now and dig through those machining attributes.
06:02
Now that you have a better idea of the machining attributes, let's go and set our attributes that we've set to a machining configuration.
06:09
So we just set in the stepover tab our finish allowance value.
06:14
With that set, let's close out our machining attribute and in the Part View to above we’ll find machining configurations.
06:22
Double click that to open up the machining configurations window.
06:27
Now, we just made a change to this document's machining attributes and we'd like to save that as a configuration for when we open future documents.
06:36
That way we won't have to keep changing the finish allowance.
06:39
So to do this, let's create a new configuration by selecting the new button in the upper right corner of the window.
06:47
Let's name this new configuration.
06:49
For this one, just for example, I'm going to call it My default aluminum configuration.
06:60
And I’ll simply select this anytime I open a part where I know I'll be machining aluminum.
07:06
We’ll indicate that we want FeatureCAM to copy all of the attributes for this new configuration from our current document's machining attributes.
07:13
So Standard_3, select "OK".
07:18
And now we can see that configuration pops up in our available configurations.
07:24
We can even make this our new default configuration every single time we open up a new document by going down to initial configuration for new documents and selecting My default aluminum configuration.
07:37
We've now essentially created a template of our machining attribute preferences and told FeatureCAM to always use this configuration for new documents.
07:46
It's a good idea to spend some time customizing your machining configurations early on when you start programming in FeatureCAM, and maybe a little bit of work and learning upfront.
07:57
But this will definitely end up saving you a lot of time in the future by eliminating the need to make the same changes over and over again in a given part.
08:06
Now that we've created that configuration, making the change to the finish allowance for not only all the features in this part, but all of the features in our new parts going forward, let's run a final 3D simulation to post our final code.
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