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The ‘General’ section enables you to specify the environment in which machining will take place, and edit the properties of the milling machine.

The layout of the ‘General’ section changes depending on your action for the following:

  • Machine - clicking the drop-down arrow for the Machine displays a set of properties that CAM Assist needs to compute a toolpath strategy.

  • Machining mode - CAM Assist provides two modes:

    • 3 Axis

    • 3+2 Axis

  • Machining direction - this is displayed only when the selected machining mode is 3+2 Axis.

For information on each of these features, see below.

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Features

‘Machine parameters’ section of the General Tab is expandable/collapsible; it contains the following:

  • Machine settings

  • Machining mode selection

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Machine settings

The following table describes each feature in the ‘General’ ‘Machine parameters' section, as shown in the screenshot above screenshots.

Feature

Machine

While the Machine itself is configured within Mastercam,

Description

Tool library

The Mastercam tool library to use within CAM Assist.

Tool Summary

Shows a summary of the tool, including the following:

  • Number of tools - the number of tools in the selected ‘Tool Library’.

  • Number of tool for material - the number of tools in the selected ‘Tool library’ that can be used on the selected ‘Stock material’.

Stock material

CAM Assist will select tools, machining strategies, and cut parameters based on the selected material.

For a full list of materials that you can use in CAM Assist, see Supported Materials.

How to Use

Shows the machine that will be used for the part. The machine is configured within Mastercam but there is a set of properties that CAM Assist requires to compute toolpath strategies.

Clicking

Follow the instructions to the right to check/amend the CAM Assist ‘Machine properties’.

  1. Click the down arrow image-20240612-102523.pngImage Added to the right of the

‘Machine’ displays those required properties:These values

  1. machine name.

    • ‘Machine’ will expand to display the required Machine properties.

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  1. The properties can be amended as follows:

    • Enter the value directly into the box.

    • Use the up/down arrow to increment/decrement the displayed value.

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  1. After ensuring the properties are correct, you may click the up arrow to collapse/hide the Machine properties.

Machining mode

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For more information on both Machining modes, see Machining Modes in the 'How-to Guides’.

Machining Direction

This section of the General tab is displayed when ‘3+2 Axis' is selected for the ‘Machining mode’.
For information, see Machining Modes

Depending on which Machining mode is selected, the layout of the ‘Machine parameters’ section changes, as shown in the following side-by-side screenshots.

Layout if the ‘3 Axis’ Machining mode is selected

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Layout if the ‘3+2 Axis’ Machining mode is selected

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3+2 Machining mode choices

As can be seen from the above screenshot, CAM Assist provides the following 3+2 Machining mode choices:

  • 3+2 Axis - if selected then a Machining direction is required:

    • Aligned to X, Y, Z axes - the tool orientation will use the +X, -X, +Y, -Y, and +Z axes coordinates from the part model.

    • User defined - the tool orientation comes from the orientation specified by the user. When this selection is made, additional controls in the Setup orientation section.

    • Automatic - automatic 3+2 strategies are in preview state. Access to this functionality is available on request.

Info

 For detailed step-by-step instructions on using all four choices, see Machining modes in the 'How-to

Guides’

Guides' section.