Configuring V Spiral flute bit?

I can’t figure out how to configure this mill in fusion… normally I use ‘chamfer mill’ for V bits which allows engraving. However those have no concept of the spiral cutter part higher on the shaft.

What is the geometry of your bit?

Are you saying that Fusion 360 does not recognize a specified flute length for a bit while creating a tool path? I don’t have your geometry, so I just threw together a dummy bit. You can certainly specify the shoulder length and flute length. I have not done any engraving, so I no idea if this actually works…

I think I figured it out… you can have a flute length that is different than the V size… fusion doesn’t visualize it all that well but I think it’s valid:

Yep… that’s it. I got confused I didn’t realize you could specify a flute on the chamfer bit.

The taper angle is per side so don’t double up on the overall tip angle…

Yep… it’s a 30 degree mill so I halved it. Strange they don’t use the same system in fusion as they do on all the mills.

Looks like you are ready to engrave now. I will look into engraving when I build my Primo. At the moment my home revovations and shop setup have me and my Lowrider too busy for that…

I’m doing my engraving on my low rider… seems to work well as long as I bed level the surface on wood or for metal use a vise that is mounted planar to the carriage and z probe the height.

Not sure I would like the results coming off of a 10’ x 6’ Lowrider…

You’d be surprised… this is on my 8’ x 4’ low rider.

image
image

3 Likes

It all looks pretty good to me! :+1:

That is an epic carving. What steps did you take to level the Z across that long of a distance?

I just had to clamp the board down… my spoil board is already flat to the carriage within 0.2mm across the whole thing which is plenty for wood carving if the piece is a consistent thickness. I’ve since discovered automatic bed levelling which is great for stuff like this if there happens to be any bowing or warping or the table is less accurate.