Hello,
I’m planning to machine a few hex bolt heads on my 1100 machine by clamping the part in a chuck bolted to the table. Has anyone ever done this procedure using Path Pilot? Not sure if Path Pilot is capable of doing this.
Trying to find a quick way of machining these hex surface without using 4th axis and without having to do a lot of programming?
Thx for any input
Not as far as I found. I’ve had to program them manually. Polygon milling was a feature I had requested.
Dave
@Noel_Henry I have an idea:
You could start by machining a square (red) then create a rectangle (teal/ yellow) and shift the WCO by 60 then -60 degrees.
Thanks.
I’m still new to Path Pilot. Can you do a you tube video using that square concept to make a hex.
Thx
There should be a dxf for bolt and screw heads. It would be easy to make the patterns and then you could scale it in path pilot. I think you can even instruct the dxf to make a hex head bolt and a hex driver bolt from the same dxf. I will look at making some generic dxf. Hex Bolt head, round head, Phillips driver, flat driver, hex driver, square drive. I think you can layer and scale and specify the positive and negative space. If I’m right you could make any combination of bolts from 5 files.
Unless someone else has some readymade.
Thanks for this update. Can you recall if you saw this dxf information on this forum?
We will be making quite a few different hex bolt heads and having a quick and easy method in Path Pilot will be a big time savings for us .
If you can make such a dxf file with instructions that would be excellent.
Thanks
I wrote the following subroutine several months ago to machine polygonal posts ( i.e. hexagonal bolt heads).
(Subroutine hex_post.nc 2-14-24)
(#1 X Center location)
(#2 Y Center location)
(#3 Z Top of Post)
(#4 Z Bottom of Hex Post)
(#5 Z Depth Cut per perimeter Pass)
(#6 Flat-to-Flat Distance)
(#7 Diameter of End Mill)
(#8 Number of final cleaning cuts - minimum 1)
(#9 Clearance above post top)
o<hex_post> sub
#10 = [[ #6 + #7 ] / 2]
#11 = [ tan[30] * #10 ]
#12 = [ 2 * #11 ]
#13 = round [[ #3 - #4 ] / #5 ] (number of passes)
#14 = [[ #3 - #4 ] / #13 ] (actual depth per pass)
#15 = [ #14 / 6 ] (actual depth per hex side)
#16 = 1
G0 X [ #1 + #10 ] Y [ #2 + #12 ]
G0 Z #9
G1 Z #3
o498 while [ #16 LE #13 ]
#17 = [ #3 - [ #16 * #14 ] + [ 5 * #15 ]]
G1 Y [ #2 - #11 ] Z #17
#17 = [ #3 - [ #16 * #14 ] + [ 4 * #15 ]]
G1 X #1 Y [ #2 - #12 ] Z #17
#17 = [ #3 - [ #16 * #14 ] + [ 3 * #15 ]]
G1 X [ #1 - #10 ] Y [ #2 - #11 ] Z #17
#17 = [ #3 - [ #16 * #14 ] + [ 2 * #15 ]]
G1 Y [ #2 + #11 ] Z #17
#17 = [ #3 - [ #16 * #14 ] + #15 ]
G1 X #1 Y [ #2 + #12 ] Z #17
#17 = [ #3 - [ #16 * #14 ]]
G1 X [ #1 + #10 ] Y [ #2 + #11 ] Z #17
#16 = [ #16 + 1 ]
o498 endwhile
#16 = 1
o499 while [ #16 LE #8 ]
G1 Y [ #2 - #11 ]
G1 X #1 Y [ #2 - #12 ]
G1 X [ #1 - #10 ] Y [ #2 - #11 ]
G1 Y [ #2 + #11 ]
G1 X #1 Y [ #2 + #12 ]
G1 X [ #1 + #10 ] Y [ #2 + #11 ]
#16 = [ #16 + 1 ]
o499 endwhile
G1 Y [ #2 - #12 ]
G0 Z #9
o<hex_post> endsub