2.5D Hole Milling

DareBee · Post by **DareBee** » Thu Apr 29, 2004 4:42 am

Not sure if this should be here or under enhancements.
It seems to me that in the hole milling parameters set up there should be a Start height or Top level pick box.
I was trying to make a hole in my part yesterday and had quite a time getting it to work. My region was created on the bottom of my part and the hole was milled relative the regions Z position instead of the top of the part where I wanted to start.
I ended up asking for a hole depth of .0005 and having my start helix exceedingly long to accomodate my part.
Did I overlook a setting?
If I did not PLEASE..PLEASE add a Top Height pick box for this operation.

BJMAUCH · Post by **BJMAUCH** » Thu Apr 29, 2004 10:34 am

The easy way to solve this problem is to use the MOVE/COPY command to make a copy of the region at the height that you want the hole to start. It seems that most of the 2.5d commands use the region z as the start point which is great for flat clearing with a zero depth pocket. This allows regions to be used in 2.5 d somewhat like inporting tool paths from the cad system. A specific area that needs to be machined can be drawn with a line at the height that the tool is to cut and then read in as a region.

Initial Image · Post by **Initial Image** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 6:49 am

I prefer having my regions at the bottom of the pocket I'm cutting. This makes it easy to never have toolpath cut below the final depth desired. While I could copy another region to the top(which I frequently do), I would prefer to be able to pick a region at the bottom of my pocket, and click on the "top" of where the pocket would start.

I am with DareBee on this one.

DareBee · Post by **DareBee** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 7:06 am

Turns out as I was programming again yesterday this does not only occur in the hole milling set up but is similar with all hole making and tapping function.
I would like the ability to pick or input the top Z level in all these functions.
As BJMAUCH mentioned, I have used the move function to move regions to desired levels, but with even with as few as 20 holes all over a plate it is tedious to select them all and move them.