Fusion 360 Adaptive Clearing

[difalkner]

I have used 2D and 3D Adaptive Clearing in Fusion 360 before but I've never used it correctly. The concept behind the toolpath profile is easy to understand but hard to commit to doing, at least it was for me. Each time I've used it with a 1/4" spiral bit, for instance, I've used a max stepdown of 0.20". So if I had a pocket that was 0.375" deep it took two passes to reach the bottom. And with the way the Adaptive Clearing toolpath works it is slower than other profile choices so it takes a while to clear a path.

Well, today I decided to use it the way it was designed and that's to cut the full depth of the pocket in one pass. I had a very large Maple trivet to cut, 15" square, and doing it my 'old' way the toolpath projected time was 56 minutes. I changed the stepdown depth to allow for cutting in one pass and I cut the entire toolpath profile in about 20 minutes. And the shavings are large and clean - no burning or dust, just large chips like they're supposed to be.

So here's what I cut -

You can see the chips here -

Full path completed -

After 20 minutes of full depth cutting I touched the bit and spindle as soon as it stopped - it was cool to the touch.

Trivet with mineral oil -

David

[Catco]

It's a great thing when you have a sharp endmill, have your feeds and speeds just right, and go whole hog on a material and see those perfectly formed little chips fly.

Also is that a 2 flute downcut spiral?

[difalkner]

Yes sir, that's exactly what it is.  Whiteside RD4700, to be exact.

It was quite a revelation for me to see it cutting that much at once, kinda cool!

David