r/CNC
Best strategy for multiple parts from single piece of stock
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I'm looking for some advice on how to cut these multiple parts from a single piece of stock. They're 1/2" aluminum, and cut from a single piece of plate. Each piece is 1.5" x 2.5", and separated by 0.400" (the spacing is fixed, as they have to fit into an existing fixture for OP2). I originally cam'ed a single part with a ramping 2D contour to cut the outline of each part, leaving some stock at the bottom to keep them together, and then duplicated the parts and CAM ops into a 2D array. I was told that would be too slow, and a better way was to just slot across the top, middle, bottom, and then vertically between each part with a 3/8" endmilll (in 2 depth passes), and then do a single full-depth (minus the web left at the bottom to keep them together, which is removed in OP2 when all the parts flipped and bolted to the fixture through the center hole in each part) finish pass on each part to take it to final dimension / shape (with the rounded corners). Is that really the best strategy for speed? And what about tool life? This is on a "real" CNC, so rigidity isn't really a concern, and there is flood coolant. The slotting method is currently running on a different machine, but re-cad / cam-ing this to run on a different machine with a different control (and different cad package) as an exercise in setting up the workflow for a "new" machine. Target machine has 20HP 10k...
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Is there an easy way to get Fusion to run the straight slotting cuts down the center of the gaps between parts (all the way from left to right for the horizontal slots, and all the way from top to bottom for the vertical slots) across multiple individual parts, without explicitly drawing a sketch with lines centered between the parts in both directions?
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Fusion seems to want to attach all CAM paths to part geometry, not to the overall "array" of the parts / in between the parts.
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Having to draw a sketch to tell it "this is where I want the cutter going" seems rather hokey, and completely defeating the purpose of CAM, yet I couldn't figure out a more elegant way to get it to do that.
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