Roland Air milling - ghost toolpaths

Hitdabox

Hitdabox

Member
Full Member
Messages
40
Reaction score
0
Hey all!

I’ve been noticing my mill often just mills air before coming into contact with the puck. Sometimes during a toolpath, it will just be milling in space like it’s zirconia but it’s just air.
Is this normal?

Roland 52-D, Millbox most recent update, zirconia, hybrid full arch milling.

Appreciate your insights!
Cheers
 
T

tuyere

Active Member
Full Member
Messages
347
Solutions
1
Reaction score
0
The important question is, is this air cutting impacting your parts?
If not: It's normal in CNC milling for toolpaths to start with a positive offset from the stock and work their way into it, because they never know exactly where they "should" start cutting, and a little bit of wasted time cutting air is highly preferable to crashing the tool into the stock, almost always breaking the tool, damaging the mill and/or workpiece, or a little of all three. The stock is also never seated with its surface truly parallel to the machine's XY plane, so you often want to do a skim cut across the entire part area to mill in that true-parallel face that'll serve as the upper surface of the part being milled, and that always involves cutting a lot of air until the cutter is fully-engaged in the material at its intended depth of cut. You don't do the latter much in dental milling, but if you ever run calibration/accuracy test parts, you'll see this come into play.

If this air cutting is leaving your parts improperly-milled, then that is something else entirely, and is an issue, yes. The cause is hard to pin down without more info.
 
Hitdabox

Hitdabox

Member
Full Member
Messages
40
Reaction score
0
That is awesome info!! Thanks for taking the time to make a response. My milled parts look and fit great so I’m sure it’s exactly what you’re saying.

Thanks!
 

Similar threads

M
Replies
2
Views
849
tuyere
T
Top Bottom