slot on a curved face

What kind of slot? What direction (axial, circumferential, angle to axis)?

The slot would be a round end style made by an end mill. The slot would be perpendicular to the axis of the cylinder, sweep 60 degrees around the cylinder. The direction of the sweep would also be perpendicular to the axis and follow the surface contour of the cylinder. If I were to machine this, I would chuck the cylinder in a verically mounted rotary table. Axis of the cylinder is parralel to the bed of the bridgeport. Cutter is centered on the axis of the cylinder. Miller is brought down to the req depth, and the rotary table is turned 60 degrees.

Something like this I would sweep cut the straight portion of the slot. Then add the round ends with a revolve cut. This would yield the exact mill cut geometry.

Here's a example...

..

I updated it... it's now here...

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in 2008 you can do a swept cut using bodies. results vary slightly from your 2006 example.

Or, 2007.

snipped-for-privacy@att.net/slot.zip

Bob

Yep... and IMHO... sadly (like most of what 2008 has) it's not very good,... the surfaces are messy and the rebuild time for these 2 particular slots (using 2008 Cut-Sweep) is 12X slower.

.. (productivity =3D -12X,... quality =3D -10X (the surfaces it creates really bad)

I opened the file & got some rebuild errors.

Is there some reason you can't just cut the straight or helical slot and then do a 180 degree rotated cut to cut the ends at each end of the slot? That takes 6 total cut items in the Feature tree to do two slots.

Bo

I opened the file & got some rebuild errors.

Is there some reason you can't just cut the straight or helical slot and then do a 180 degree rotated cut to cut the ends at each end of the slot? That takes 6 total cut items in the Feature tree to do two slots.

Bo

What the op asked about was a groove in a cylinder subtending 60 degrees with a cylindrical cutting tool. Move the tool into the cylinder the desired depth rotate the cylinder 60 degrees and move the tool out of the cylinder.

Bob

Bo,

Sure,.. if you got a better way,.. is there a reason why don't you post your way of doing it?

And,... what file and what feature failed... or what version?

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now here...

And.... mill-cut-radial-tool-path-sw2006-zxys-c.zip

.. (geez someone has to do it....)

s now here...

geez... someone's got to do it.... Bo's way... it's too easy that way... 8^)

..

s now here...

I never explored how to post files to this group, as I've not really had much reason, at least until now.

On your downloaded file "mill-cut...zxys-b.SLDPRT", opened in SWks

2006 SP3.4 the start end normals, cut away excess and check profile had problems.

Bo

I misstated in saying "to post files".

I don't currently use a website where I would host files that I could post a URL for people to download from.

Thanks Guys!

Try the SolidMentor

SolidWorks Tutorial "using the Emboss and Deboss funtion"