Facemilling dialog - General tab

Coord Input

You only see this when editing the cycle. Check this if you want to re-digitise the input to the cycle.

Mill Type

Coose one of:

Climb

The tool cuts on the left of the profile - the material is on the right-hand side of the tool in the direction of travel.

The tool always cuts in the same direction.

Conventional

Tool cuts on right of the profile - the  material is on the left-hand side of the tool in the direction of travel.

The tool always cuts in the same direction.

Optimised

Alternate cuts are in alternate directions.

This reduces the tool travel as it starts each cut at the same end it finished the last cut.

% Stepover

The maximum spacing between passes as a percentage of the tool Small Diameter.

The Small Diameter is the diameter of the end face of the tool. This is an explicit setting for facemill tools in the toolstore. For an endmill tool this is the tool Diameter minus double the corner radius.

If Small Diameter is zero (ball nose tools), the stepover is based on the tool Diameter.

The stepover is adjusted downwards in the toolpath to ensure even spacing between passes.

Angle

the lacing angle in degrees. The default is 0 degrees.

Step Direction

Specifies the cutting side (and hence direction) of the first cut, when Mill Type is set to Optimised (unavailable if Mill Type is not set to Optimised). See an illustration.

Tolerance

 Controls the machining accuracy. Specify the distance band across the width of the mathematically correct toolpath within which the actual toolpath entities can be generated. Small values result in a more accurate finish, but the system takes longer to generate the toolpath.

Stock Offset

The distance that the toolpath boundary is offset outside or inside (negative values) your digitised boundary. You can only specify an inside offset up to a maximum of the tool radius. This is given a default value of 0.5mm/0.02inch to ensure the last pass does not leave an un-machined sliver.

Feedrate

The rate of movement in the workplane.

Plunge Feed

Specifies the rate of movement in the direction of the tool axis.

Speed

the tool spindle speed.