V-Carve Pocketing

The V-Carve feature type is generally used to engrave text, arcs, lines and splines in a 3-dimensional form with 3-axis tool motion, with pocketing of open spaces in the selected profiles if necessary. There are two V-Carve operation types, Tapered Pocketing and V-Carve Finishing (engraving). This example uses the both operations, one to perform the pocketing with an endmill, and the second to cut a tapered wall around the pocket.

Pocketing a shape with V-CARVE example:

Part 1) Open a new file

  1. Go to File > New to create a new part file.

Part 2) Create the Rectangle

  1. Right-click the Front Plane and select Sketch.

  2. Choose Tools > Sketch Entities > Corner Rectangle.

  3. Starting at the origin, create a rectangle with values X = 4 and Y = 3 and click OK.


Part 3) Create the Fillet

  1. Choose Tools > Sketch Tools > Fillet...

  2. Set the Parameters to 1.0000.

  3. Select the Vertex at the top-right and click OK.



  4. Exit the sketch.

Part 4) Create the CAM Job

  1. In the CAM Tree, right-click CAM Defaults,and click New Job.

  2. With the Milling job type and the BC 3X Mill machine selected, and the Start Stock Wizard check box selected, click OK.

  3. Click the (next) button to skip the workpiece assignment.

Part 5) Create the Stock

  1. With Rectangular selected, the software automatically creates a bounding stock for the text in the graphics area.



  2. In the Offset group, add a 0.2500 offset for -X, +X, -Y, and +Y.



  3. Click to go to the Machine Setup.

Part 6) Set the Machine Setup and Work Offset

  1. Select the following vertex as the origin.



  2. In the Work Offset group, set the Z value to .000.

  3. Click OK.

Part 7) Create the Feature

  1. In the CAM Tree, right-clickMachine Setup, and click Mill V-Carve.

  2. In the Mill V-Carve Wizard,click the Select Geometry button.

    The Mill V-Carve Wizard disappears, allowing you to select geometry from the graphics area.

  3. In the Feature Manager Design Tree, select the sketch.



  4. Click OK.

    The Mill V-Carve Wizard returns.

  5. Click Next>> to go the Feature page.

  6. In the Feature Parameters group, change the Total Depth to .

  7. Click Next>> to go the Machining Strategy page.

  8. In the Tree on the left of the wizard, click Machining Strategy to jump to that page.

  9. Under Available Operations,with Tapered Pocketing selected, click the left arrow button, ,to add the operation to the Current Operations list.

  10. Under Current Operations, click the up arrow button, , to move the Tapered Pocketing operation to the top of the list.

  11. Click Next>> to update the tree with the new operations.

Part 8) Set the Roughing Tool

  1. Click Next >> again to move to the tool page.

  2. Change the Diametervalue to , and pressTab to update the value.

    The system automatically selects a tool from the Tool Library(after checking the Tool Crib).

Part 9) Set the Parameters

  1. Click Next>> to go to the Parameters page.

  2. Notice the Pocket Depthis already defined.

  3. Change the Depth of Cut value to .

  4. Update the Endmill Cutter Width % value to 33.

  5. Click Next>>.

Part 10) Set the Finishing Tool

  1. Confirm the default inch Diameter V-Tool is selected, and click Next>>.

Part 11) Set the Finishing Parameters

  1. Under Depth Options, change the V-Tool Depth of Cut value to .

  2. Change the V-Tool Roughing Stepovervalue to .

Note: Notice the V-Tool Cleanup Parameters. Because we are using a Tapered Pocketing operation, we can set the stepover to perform a cleanup path in the corners of the pocket using the V-tool.


  1. Change the V-Tool Cleanup Stepover value to .

  2. At the bottom of the wizard, click Compute.



  3. To view the toolpath simulation, right-click Milling Job and click Simulation.For more information on using simulation, view Getting Started with Simulation.

 

This concludes the example.