Inventor Nesting Push: CAM Milling and Cutting

00:14

Let's return to the Knife part.

00:16

We managed to nest it properly and give it a sufficient distance between the parts with enough material left.

00:25

But how can we get the detail that we want in the final part?

00:31

In order to do that, we bring the sheet through the "Create 3D Model" command to an Inventor Assembly.

00:39

I use the defaults here.

00:46

From here, we can go to the CAM environment and create some setups.

00:54

The fact that the part has such intricate details like grooves,

00:58

and there are steps in there and holes means that I cannot finish this part with a cutting operation or a cutting setup alone.

01:08

So it needs to be a mix of milling setups and a cutting setup.

01:14

So my first setup will be a milling setup.

01:18

And I use this as a start point.

01:22

I use my stock that came from nesting as my stock for the setup.

01:33

I'll make my stock invisible for now so that allows for easier picking.

01:41

So at this point, I'm in a milling setup, so I can do traditional milling operations.

01:48

So for instance, I could do a drill operation with a drill that I've set up in my personal library.

01:58

This is one of the holes.

01:59

I also make it select all same diameter holes.

02:07

I see that the hole is not going really through the part.

02:12

So I add a negative offset at the bottom of the part.

02:22

That's my first milling operation.

02:26

The next milling operation would be to carve out the step or the groove.

02:32

So, I create a 2D pocket operation and I use a flat mill tool here for my library.

02:45

Geometry I want to mill out this portion here.

02:52

I want to limit that milling to just that face so that I'm not cutting into neighboring parts.

03:01

I also want to remove the stock to leave.

03:06

I don't need this because my tool is small enough to handle that detail.

03:12

And here is my pocket operation.

03:16

I use a similar operation for the groove so I can duplicate my first pocket operation and then change the geometry in my second operation.

03:27

So I can select as pocket here and my stock that limits the pocket,

03:41

oh, I missed that pick.

03:48

So now I have a drill, a pocket, and another pocket.

03:55

Those two pocket operation are just on one of the instances.

03:59

So if I want to create that on all the parts, it's very easy to create a component pattern.

04:09

And there you go.

04:11

So now let's have a look at the bottom side of the part.

04:17

You see, it has a curved nature and which we also want to cut out.

04:25

So here again, we need another setup.

04:29

Let me first bring back my stock here.

04:34

So it requires a second setup with the Z flipped in this direction.

04:46

And my stock is my existing part.

04:56

For this card phase, I think a correct 3D milling operation would be a scallop operation.

05:04

So I'm using scallop here with a ball mill tool.

05:10

And geometry, I want to machine, is just limited to this face here.

05:25

This is the face I want to machine, not this one.

05:37

The scallop doesn't have a correct step over.

05:41

So I'll make it a little bit fine, finer like a 0.025 inch, to get less scallop height.

05:53

So here you go on one part.

05:56

Here again, we can put it in a pattern to machine all the parts.

06:11

So we now have the milling operations correctly set up.

06:18

The only thing that remains to be done is to actually cut out the parts.

06:23

So we use the exact same procedure.

06:26

We create a new setup, this time cutting operation

06:31

and we use same part and we activate the setup.

06:46

So the 2D profile command, let's say it's Plasma Cutter,

06:54

the geometry that we want to cut out is not as easy to find as we would think.

06:60

So, the first pick would give me this.

07:03

If I pick again and then I can extend my selection.

07:10

And this is the profile that I really want.

07:19

Here again, I have a 2D profile on one of the parts.

07:24

To get it on all of them, I just use a component pattern.

07:36

So now we have set up all the operations to do a simulation.

07:52

And I'll run through it slowly.

07:56

So you see the pocketing operations.

08:06

I mean, if I wrote it here, you'll see the scallop operation at the bottom.

08:15

And then finally, the cutting operation with a couple of collisions

08:30

due to the head hitting the part, but that can be easily solved.

08:37

So if you then look on top side here,

08:42

you see that I correctly have cut out the parts, in the full detail, after the nesting.

08:54

Thanks for watching.