See the image below on what I am carving. This is larger (about 4" tall), so I am using a 1/8" endmill for carving the pocket and a 1/8" 45-degree endmill for the carving. If I set the machining order to automatic (first photo) I only have to do 1 tool change, but it is a 90-minute carve (Estlcam estimates 43, but I ran it and with the travel, it took 90) and the machining order is terrible and bounces all over. If I order the carve’s machining order by letter (2nd photo) it is only a 23-minute carve and is much more efficient, but it does a tool change for each letter and I really don’t want to do 17 tool changes.
Is there any way to set the machine order so it doesn’t bounce all over, but have it do all of the pocketing and then all the carving so I only need 1 tool change?
It isn’t the most intuitive interface, but you can order as desired.
From the manual:
Machining order:
Estlcam determines the machining order in 3 steps:
First all toolpaths with positive numbers will be machined in strict order from the smallest to the largest…
Then all toolpath set to “Auto” follow - here Estlcam tries to find an useful order itself…
Finally all toolpaths with negative numbers will be machined - also in strict order from the smallest (most negative) to the largest…
For simple projects you usually don’t need to care about the machining order - Estlcam calculates quite usable orders in most situations…
You may count e.g. 10, 20, 30 instead of 1, 2, 3 so you can later insert things in between if needed…
You may also use the same number more than once: if you count 1, 2, 2, 3 the toolpaths set to “2” will be machined after the toolpath set to “1” and before the toolpath set to “3” but which one of the “2s” comes first is up to Estlcam… So if you like to make sure some toolpaths are machined at the beginning but don’t care about the exact order between them set them all to “1” and if you like to put them at the end set them all to “-1”…
Sorry, I see that you meant that you used the machining order edit capability to get it to cut single letters but you can’t get it to mill the pocket of all the letters, one by one, and then go back one by one to clean up the sides with the v-bit. I’m trying to decipher the tool path pictures with how carving works and pocketing. Still fairly new at this and I bump my head all the time still. I was assuming you were doing a pocketing operation on each letter and then doing an engrave with the vbit and didn’t quite realize how the carving operation is set up with a pocketing operation with a separate tool in the same operation.
This is a stumper for me because you can’t reorder the pocketing operation of a carve or a finishing operation of a part/hole that I can see.
How does it work if you just do the Welcome as one set? Otherwise it seems to raster back and forth to the next level rather than simply following up the line to the next letter.
If I manually set the welcome to 1, the “to our” to 2 and cabin to 3 I get a faster time, but tool changes for each set. It looks like each level set in machine order is 1 tool change. So if everything is on 1 level (automatic) I get 1 tool change. 17 levels (each letter) I get 17 tool changes.
I think you can achieve this with two separate operations, one as a carve with no pocketing, and a second operation with a different tool that is just the pocket (“Hole” with pocket).
The tricky part is the pocket will ruin the nice beveled carve if it goes all the way to the edge so you will need to set a finishing allowance for it to avoid the carved edges. You would need to calculate the amount of finishing allowance to match the radius of the carve tool at maximum depth. And you must not specify a finishing tool for the pocket. Then it will just leave the pocketing operation undersize and you should end up with the same result as using the pocket option of the carve operation.
Thanks for that tip. I was trying to figure this out with two different operations and just assumed that when you put in a finish path margin, it would default to the roughing tool.
