Hi, I am having trouble understanding 3d relief finishing as I can’t control how much is carved at a time after doing the 3d relief roughing pass with 6mm bit. The Rouging is going from start depth of 1mm to 12mm finish depth, then I was thinking of doing 1mm to 14mm finishing which is 2mm greater depth but I am only using a 1mm tapered ball nose. I would like to do this in 3 passes but there is no setting for this to do. Or is there an auto depth setting for the finishing pass?
Thanks
Hi, I am having trouble understanding 3d relief finishing as I can’t control how much is carved at a time after doing the 3d relief roughing pass with 6mm bit. The Rouging is going from start depth of 1mm to 12mm finish depth, then I was thinking of doing 1mm to 14mm finishing which is 2mm greater depth but I am only using a 1mm tapered ball nose. I would like to do this in 3 passes but there is no setting for this to do. Or is there an auto depth setting for the finishing pass?
Thanks
3D finish cutting is usually done with a Ball End tool. Your tool is a Vcut tool, so MillMage might be getting mixed signals on what you want to do. It says “ball” in the description, but it is not in the tool definition.
Thanks Mike but even changing to an end mill bit in 3d Finish there is now setting a depth of cut if I use a fine bit and want to take off for final finish, Does the finishing need to be done as another step with a change of bit but in the Roughing phase. So I just do clearing with one larger bit then do a finishing cut but make the stepover percentage smaller for that operation.
Or am I even doing the carve with the wrong operations using the 3d ones. Would I even be better doing it with the Pocket or rest pocket. In Carveco I just set the depth and number of passes with just the different bits>
No, you appear to have the correct operations, and in the correct order. However, it is your settings that need to be reviewed. For example, In the 3D Relief Finishing operation you have a Final Depth of 14.00mm. However the documentation clearly shows that field should contain a percentage.
I recommend you review the documentation step by step and make no assumptions about what a field should contain. In other words, do not skip over any of the information. If something is confusing, come back and post your questions.
MillMage is new so we are all on a learning curve. 
It does say a measurement as well so I set that at 14mm as that is the depth I want to finish at in the 17mm material and I don’t want to cut right through. I tried the % and measurement but relief finishing dives down to the final depth (82% or 14mm) and not carve at 1 or 2mm layers as that is how I did it in Carveco. The bit has 1mm depth per cut in the bit settings so I presumed that MM would calculate that as the depth per carve down to the finished depth
The Final Depth field can accept values with units of measure or as percentages. Setting the Final Depth to 100% will cut to/through the current stock dimensions Thickness value set in Project Setup.
The Start Depth and Final Depth settings combined control the thickness of your 3D relief carving. Subtract the Final Depth from the Start Depth to determine the 3D relief carving thickness.
Ok, I am not connecting what you are saying with what I seeing in the file (not your fault, mine). I will investigate more after a night’s sleep. 
This is determined by depth per roughing pass, i couldn’t grasp it to start with either
have a read of this post and hopefully it all makes sense,
always put a paint colour to your roughing pass so you can see it in preview ,as sometimes it is still visible in finish due to the stl
you will find some files roughing and finish can be set to same final depth others need to be dif
i always have stock to leave at min 1.5mm
i see your step over was quiet large at 40% drop it under 15% to gett nice finish
i have had play with your settings i run my z on finish at same as feed , again dependent on material working with, i run a 0.5r ballnose at 1800 feed and 1800 ramp at 3mm doc in totara with no issues cant send big file from this computer
a file like urs with alot of curves and height i will run ramp even faster
Thanks for that I will have a play around with the depths and see If I can get the same as you have
Terry,
You are now my Go-To Guy for MillMage!
thanks Mike , But i wouldn’t take everything i say as 
,
cause when those wires in my head start shorting out , I confuse myself
ur welcome
just seen some thing with your roughing pass, might been typo 1500 on ramp will be to fast
can you elabaroate on what are the 3 passses, im reading it in 3 dif ways
if you want do it in 3 passes in roughing pass : depth per pass box put final depth eg you want 14mm doc:
14/3 than hit tab
Hi what I was trying to do was 1 roughing pass, 2 finishing pass, 3 cutout pass. I ended up getting the job done but for a newbie with Millmage after coming from Carveco it was very confusing not having number of passes for the finishing pass.
Thanks guys for your help, I need a lot more reading to do
I feel there should be a depth per pass option for the 3d relief finishing path so we can control how much to take off for finishing bit
You can make a roughing to 12 mm after a finish to 13mm then a finish to 14mm. 3 Ops.
Thats what I had to do but I would have thought it would be way simpler to have this done in one operation like the roughing pass
ive never used carvco. so you can tell it how many finishing passes to do ? ,
from my point of view not sure why you would do 2 finishing operations., ive never found the need to want to do a 2nd finishing pass with MM, as long as your step over is right on ur bullnose it comes out clean, ive found tool angle + 2 works well for starting point eg 7 deg tool +2 = stepover % 9
not sure if i have said this above, but do trials with raster angles on finishing pass,
I find i get lot cleaner finishes on my jobs running between 22 -40 deg angle
to me this is 3 operations not passes
1 X roughing operation going by your settings , 8 passes at 1.5mm = 12mm
and 2 finishing operations
by setting your 3D Relief Finishing operation final depth to 14mm, your actual cutting depth for this operation is 3.5mm not 1.5mm,
i thought that at 1st also, but once you get your head around it it doesn’t need it, its prob more confusing as you have come from another program , where MM is all i have used
create a folder in operation library called 3D : adjust DOP, stepover in roughing operation and rename them according to types of material and cutter, then do same with finishing operation.
this helped me get my head around it doing trials, and saves so much time on your next jobs
if you tweak settings in operation tab and are happy with tweak ,make sure you go into library , right click that operation and click update as it doesn’t auto update
Thanks mate
ur welcome
Why would you want to do a finish pass in 2 passes? Just wondering. I always do mine with 1 pass. If the depth of carve is not deeper than the finish tool flutes, then I don’t even use a roughing pass. (I use the IDC fine carving bit 10deg Tapered ball nose with a .045 tip radius for anything larger than 5 inch X 5 inch carve)
