VisualMill T-slots and undercuts
| VisualMill has a nice interface for doing square T-slots. I could not get it to do a radiused slot or an undercut. |
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SolidWorks assembly file here.
The VisualMill demo program will not allow saving, so the file above is just the assembly.
VisualMill has a very graphical dialog box to show how to set up a T-slot. The problem is they don't tell how the dimensions you enter relate to the geometry you pick.
Another concern is that you have to enter the dimensions of the slot and its location manually. This might require going back into the part tree and looking at sketches to see the dimensions of the slot. I tried a slot that had a radiused bottom, and I could not figure out how to "fool" the T-slot operation into doing it. |
I could not figure out how to do the slot as a 3D operation with an undercut. As usual, my standard for this is SolidCAM. There I used profiles and multi-level profiles to work down the curve at the bottom of the slot, or I could define it as a 3D undercut operation and a thin tool would follow the curve down until the whole slot was cut. Not with VisualMill.
I tried several different 3D operations and VisualMill would not generate toolpaths when I had the surface at the bottom of the slot selected. One try resulted in completely invalid toolpaths that were bombing through the part. This may be operator error, but when I looked on the internet, I could not see any videos that showed VisualMill 2020 doing undercuts.
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