A look at Undercut

While we are still working on some special undercut-features, most of our strategies now fully support undercut. These include Parallel, Radial, Pocket and all Contour strategies. In this post, we will show some examples of our strategies with undercut applied to them and look at a couple of new features that are currently in beta.

If interested in beta-testing the latest features, contact our support team to enable Beta mode.

To enable undercut for any of the strategies that support it, select the Milling tab and check the field “allow undercut”.

Contour

– Supports undercut with tools such as slot, lollipop and dove.
– Supports undercut with tilt for ball and lollipop tools.
– Supports undercut with Contour in Spiral mode.

Pocket

– Supports undercut with tools such as slot, lollipop and dove.

Parallel

– Only supports undercut with lollipop tools.
– Supports undercut with tilt for ball and lollipop tools. (Beta mode)

ConstantCut (Beta mode)

– Supports undercut with tools such as slot, lollipop and dove.

Roughing strategies

The roughing strategies Pocket and ConstantCut does not support tilt, so only undercut with specific tools such as slot, lollipop and dove tools, are available.

In most cases, when using the roughing strategies, you would:
1. Machine as much as possible with the roughing strategy – without undercut.
2. Machine rest material using undercut tools.

The Pocket strategy includes many additional options for working with undercut. Options that are currently in beta mode include:

1. Ordering from bottom to top (Beta mode)
Helps avoid the tool from moving inside a layer of material chips which could be at the bottom of the part. Ordering from bottom to top is also supported by the Contour strategy.

2. Opening cut (Beta mode)
Since the tool has a big engagement with the material on the first z-level, all stepovers must be done at this point. That way, several of the first stepovers, for subsequent z-levels, can be ignored to reduce machining time.

In the image below, several stepovers are done at the bottom (ordering from bottom to top) and only one stepover for all subsequent levels.

Please look at “3D Pocket with undercut” in our demo parts.

Flat areas are not only detected with the bottom of the tool, but also with the first undercut tool piece. This is very important, as it helps to remove all material.

Finishing strategies

Our finishing strategies support tilt with undercut which makes it possible to reach undercut areas using a ball tool. With tilt and undercut enabled, the tool path is of course, converted to 5-axis.

For an example, please look at “Contour with 5-axis tilt and undercut” in our demo parts.