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Transcript
00:10
Welcome to the second lesson in the FeatureCAM standard milling course.
00:14
In the last lesson, we programmed a part from scratch as if we were programming a part from a physical drawing.
00:22
In this lesson, as opposed to starting a part from scratch, we're going to be programming features off of a solid model using FeatureCAM's Feature Recognition.
00:33
Just like with any project in FeatureCAM, we’ll be using the workflow that we've talked about previously in this course to guide us through the programming of this part.
00:42
So to start things out, let's create a milling document with inch as the unit of measurement.
00:48
We’ll select wizard in My Configuration and select Create new document.
00:54
Now in the previous exercise, we stepped through the stock wizard to define our stock.
00:59
However, in this exercise, let's import our solid model first and then define the stock.
01:04
So I'll cancel out of the stock wizard.
01:07
And I'm simply going to drag and drop the Standard_2 Parasolid file into the graphics window.
01:17
You can see as soon as I drag and drop the file, it asks, would you like to import the model?
01:23
"Yes", and as you may have guessed, we're met with the Import wizard.
01:27
This wizard similar to the stock wizard is going to help us set up and define our stock as well as our setup location.
01:34
So let's choose the first option to use the wizard to establish the initial setup location and stock size.
01:43
The first thing FeatureCAM is going to ask us to do is define the Z direction based off of our solid model.
01:50
Now we have a lot of different options here.
01:52
But for now, let's just stick with the first option by picking two points to define our Z direction.
01:59
I’ll select that, right click in the graphics window to take an isometric view.
02:05
And let's pick two points on this vertical edge in the lower left corner of our solid model.
02:13
With those two selected, you'll notice in the lower left corner of the graphics window, we successfully defined our Z direction, moving upwards in the same direction as this vertical edge.
02:23
If at any point, I accidentally created going downward, but aligned correctly, I could simply reverse the Z.
02:31
Moving on, we'll do the exact same thing with the X direction, and let's pick two points along this horizontal edge.
02:39
With those two selected, it looks like our X direction is correct, our Z direction is correct, and that leaves us with only one solution for our positive Y direction.
02:48
And now we're ready to set up our stock.
02:51
Just like the stock wizard, we have three choices: Block, Round, and N-sided.
02:56
We'll go with the block stock.
02:58
And now you'll notice things look a little bit different from our last lesson.
03:01
We have two main options, enter specific stock dimensions or we could let FeatureCAM compute the stock size from the size of our solid model.
03:11
In this example, let's pretend that we already have our piece of material, and we need to enter in stock dimensions.
03:18
Now you'll notice I have three different columns down below, one titled Imported data, one titled Stock dimensions, and one titled Offset imported data.
03:28
So the imported data option actually looks at the solid model and says, this is the minimum length, width, and thickness you need to create this solid model.
03:39
So, let's go into the stock dimensions column and enter in some values that are a little bit bigger than the calculated length, width, and thickness.
03:48
So let's go with a length of 8.25.
03:52
Then we'll go with a width of 5.25.
03:56
And then let's just do a thickness of 1.05.
04:01
Now we can select Preview and we can see a preview of the stock that we've just defined with the solid model bound inside of the stock.
04:10
This last column that we see allows us to offset the model inside of the bounding box of the stock that we just created.
04:18
Here, if I select Center, this simply centers the offsets so that our solid model is directly in the center of the stock that we've created.
04:26
An offset in the X of an eighth of an inch, an offset in the Y of an eighth of an inch and an offset in the Z of 0.025 inches.
04:37
This should be fine. So let's press "Next".
04:40
And you may recognize this page, we're now ready to move on to the third step in our workflow, machining prep by defining our setup location.
04:49
Now in the last exercise, we placed it on the top face in the lower left corner.
04:53
This time, let's place it on the upper left corner, but rather than putting it on the face of the stock, let's say, I want my touch off to be right on the face of the actual part.
05:04
So to do this, we can select upper left corner like we just have and then we can simply offset our Z value down to the face of this stock.
05:12
You may remember, in this case, we've added an extra 50 thousandths of stock on top of the model.
05:18
So, what we really need to do is offset the Z location down 0.025 inches by entering in negative 0.025.
05:28
But let's say that we don't know the exact value and we want to physically place it on the face of the solid model.
05:35
Each one of these X, Y, Z parameters is highlighted in blue.
05:40
Anytime you see a parameter highlighted in blue in FeatureCAM, this means that you're allowed to actually pick the value off of the model in the graphics window.
05:49
So in this case, I'll highlight over the blue highlighted Z, select, and I'll select the face of this model.
05:57
Just as a quick tip, when we're selecting faces in FeatureCAM, it's best to select an edge until you see the intended face completely highlighted.
06:05
So I'm selecting this top edge, I can see the face of the model's highlighted.
06:10
As I select, we see that expected negative 0.025 inches.
06:15
So we're ready to move on, indicate that we want no multi-axis positioning.
06:21
And we're done with the Import wizard.
06:24
With our import wizard completed, we've successfully imported our model, set up our stock, and placed our touch off location where all of our NC Code will be calculated from.
06:34
That just leaves us with two remaining steps for our machining's prep phase, selecting our active tool crib and defining what post processor we’ll be using for this project.
06:44
For this exercise, let's stick with that Basic tool crib like we did in the last one by selecting it in the lower right hand corner.
06:51
And this time, rather than going with the Fanuc CNC, let's go with the Haas CNC.
06:58
Now I could click on the current post processor and browse to it if I would like, or just like when we brought in our solid model, I can simply drag and drop the Haas VF.cnc file that we want to use as our post processor.
07:14
Now I just drag and drop that and we can see the change has been reflected in the lower right hand corner of our status bar, where I see Haas Vf.cnc.
07:23
So with that, we've successfully imported our part, setup our stock, and completed all machining preparations, and are ready to start creating features.
Video transcript
00:10
Welcome to the second lesson in the FeatureCAM standard milling course.
00:14
In the last lesson, we programmed a part from scratch as if we were programming a part from a physical drawing.
00:22
In this lesson, as opposed to starting a part from scratch, we're going to be programming features off of a solid model using FeatureCAM's Feature Recognition.
00:33
Just like with any project in FeatureCAM, we’ll be using the workflow that we've talked about previously in this course to guide us through the programming of this part.
00:42
So to start things out, let's create a milling document with inch as the unit of measurement.
00:48
We’ll select wizard in My Configuration and select Create new document.
00:54
Now in the previous exercise, we stepped through the stock wizard to define our stock.
00:59
However, in this exercise, let's import our solid model first and then define the stock.
01:04
So I'll cancel out of the stock wizard.
01:07
And I'm simply going to drag and drop the Standard_2 Parasolid file into the graphics window.
01:17
You can see as soon as I drag and drop the file, it asks, would you like to import the model?
01:23
"Yes", and as you may have guessed, we're met with the Import wizard.
01:27
This wizard similar to the stock wizard is going to help us set up and define our stock as well as our setup location.
01:34
So let's choose the first option to use the wizard to establish the initial setup location and stock size.
01:43
The first thing FeatureCAM is going to ask us to do is define the Z direction based off of our solid model.
01:50
Now we have a lot of different options here.
01:52
But for now, let's just stick with the first option by picking two points to define our Z direction.
01:59
I’ll select that, right click in the graphics window to take an isometric view.
02:05
And let's pick two points on this vertical edge in the lower left corner of our solid model.
02:13
With those two selected, you'll notice in the lower left corner of the graphics window, we successfully defined our Z direction, moving upwards in the same direction as this vertical edge.
02:23
If at any point, I accidentally created going downward, but aligned correctly, I could simply reverse the Z.
02:31
Moving on, we'll do the exact same thing with the X direction, and let's pick two points along this horizontal edge.
02:39
With those two selected, it looks like our X direction is correct, our Z direction is correct, and that leaves us with only one solution for our positive Y direction.
02:48
And now we're ready to set up our stock.
02:51
Just like the stock wizard, we have three choices: Block, Round, and N-sided.
02:56
We'll go with the block stock.
02:58
And now you'll notice things look a little bit different from our last lesson.
03:01
We have two main options, enter specific stock dimensions or we could let FeatureCAM compute the stock size from the size of our solid model.
03:11
In this example, let's pretend that we already have our piece of material, and we need to enter in stock dimensions.
03:18
Now you'll notice I have three different columns down below, one titled Imported data, one titled Stock dimensions, and one titled Offset imported data.
03:28
So the imported data option actually looks at the solid model and says, this is the minimum length, width, and thickness you need to create this solid model.
03:39
So, let's go into the stock dimensions column and enter in some values that are a little bit bigger than the calculated length, width, and thickness.
03:48
So let's go with a length of 8.25.
03:52
Then we'll go with a width of 5.25.
03:56
And then let's just do a thickness of 1.05.
04:01
Now we can select Preview and we can see a preview of the stock that we've just defined with the solid model bound inside of the stock.
04:10
This last column that we see allows us to offset the model inside of the bounding box of the stock that we just created.
04:18
Here, if I select Center, this simply centers the offsets so that our solid model is directly in the center of the stock that we've created.
04:26
An offset in the X of an eighth of an inch, an offset in the Y of an eighth of an inch and an offset in the Z of 0.025 inches.
04:37
This should be fine. So let's press "Next".
04:40
And you may recognize this page, we're now ready to move on to the third step in our workflow, machining prep by defining our setup location.
04:49
Now in the last exercise, we placed it on the top face in the lower left corner.
04:53
This time, let's place it on the upper left corner, but rather than putting it on the face of the stock, let's say, I want my touch off to be right on the face of the actual part.
05:04
So to do this, we can select upper left corner like we just have and then we can simply offset our Z value down to the face of this stock.
05:12
You may remember, in this case, we've added an extra 50 thousandths of stock on top of the model.
05:18
So, what we really need to do is offset the Z location down 0.025 inches by entering in negative 0.025.
05:28
But let's say that we don't know the exact value and we want to physically place it on the face of the solid model.
05:35
Each one of these X, Y, Z parameters is highlighted in blue.
05:40
Anytime you see a parameter highlighted in blue in FeatureCAM, this means that you're allowed to actually pick the value off of the model in the graphics window.
05:49
So in this case, I'll highlight over the blue highlighted Z, select, and I'll select the face of this model.
05:57
Just as a quick tip, when we're selecting faces in FeatureCAM, it's best to select an edge until you see the intended face completely highlighted.
06:05
So I'm selecting this top edge, I can see the face of the model's highlighted.
06:10
As I select, we see that expected negative 0.025 inches.
06:15
So we're ready to move on, indicate that we want no multi-axis positioning.
06:21
And we're done with the Import wizard.
06:24
With our import wizard completed, we've successfully imported our model, set up our stock, and placed our touch off location where all of our NC Code will be calculated from.
06:34
That just leaves us with two remaining steps for our machining's prep phase, selecting our active tool crib and defining what post processor we’ll be using for this project.
06:44
For this exercise, let's stick with that Basic tool crib like we did in the last one by selecting it in the lower right hand corner.
06:51
And this time, rather than going with the Fanuc CNC, let's go with the Haas CNC.
06:58
Now I could click on the current post processor and browse to it if I would like, or just like when we brought in our solid model, I can simply drag and drop the Haas VF.cnc file that we want to use as our post processor.
07:14
Now I just drag and drop that and we can see the change has been reflected in the lower right hand corner of our status bar, where I see Haas Vf.cnc.
07:23
So with that, we've successfully imported our part, setup our stock, and completed all machining preparations, and are ready to start creating features.
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