F1 Fixture - Side Machining - QuickCAM Pro - F1 in Schools Car Tutorial

Here is a screen recording going through the whole process.

This may help if something didn't make sense in the steps below.

Open QuickCAM Pro

You will see this screen once it has opened.

We now want to open the STL file of the car we want to cut. Select the 3D model button.

A window will pop-up asking you to select the STL file you want to open.

Once you have selected the STL file press the open button.

The STL model of the Car you selected will open.

You can click and hold the left mouse button down and move the mouse around the rotate the model.

Confirm this is the car you want to create the .fnc file for and click on next

This step is one of the most important steps to set correctly.

Rotate the view around until you get the red arrow pointing down as shown.

The arrow represents the cutter in the CNC Router, so orientating the view like this means it is like us standing in front of the machine and looking through the door of the machine.

We now need to orientate the car to match how it is orientated inside the CNC Router.

This guide is showing you the settings for cutting the car using a F1 Fixture. If you are using the 4th Axis Fixture please go back and select the guide for that fixture.

Using the up and down arrows next to the X, Y and Z values on the top left of the screen.

You need to get your car to be the same orientation as shown in the screenshot. We need the canister hole facing the left side and the bottom of the car facing away from us.

Once you have the correct orientation of the car select the next button

The next step is to set the Depth of Cut. By default this value will be 32.5mm (1/2 the width of the balsa blank). However you must change this value so that it takes into account the radius of the 6mm ball nose cutter we are using, which is 3mm.

Change the Depth of cut value to -35.5mm. Please note that this is NEGATIVE!

You will see the depth of cut represented as a blue plane cutting through your model.

Once the cut plane depth is set click on next.

You will now be asked to Set Billet Size. This MUST be set to the exact size of the Balsa Blank. Set the X, Y & Z values to the following:

X = 223.000

Y = 50.000

Z = 65.000

These values are correct for machining the side of the car. For Top and Bottom Machining the values are different. Click here for the Top and Bottom Machining guide.

Now click Next.

At this point it is important to check that the Scale value is set to 100%. If this is not set to 100% you are running the risk of machining your fixture!

QuickCAM Pro will automatically scale the model down to fit within the billet if it is too large. If this happens you need to go back to your CAD package and modify the car body and bring the new STL file in and run it through again.

Most issues come from the billet locator at the front of the car being the incorrect size or not in the correct position.

Once you have the scale at 100% click on Next.

You will now be asked to set the Model Position. This is not required because of the fact that the QuickCAM Billet Locator has ensured that the position of your car is in the correct position relative to the Balsa Blank.

One thing to check is that the Z Position is zero in the top cell.

Now click Next.

You are now asked to Set Boundary. You must extend the model boundary in the Y value from 0 to 4. This is to allow the cutter to cut to the outer extremities of the model. This is to be set to 4 due to the fact that the 6mm Ball nose cutter has a radius of 3mm and we want to give it an extra 1mm to ensure it can pass around all features of the car.

Now click Next.

You will now be asked to Setup Tools. By default you will be presented with a 6mm Ball Nose cutter in slot 1. Ensure the 6mm Ball nose cutter is selected.

Your 6mm Ball nose cutter may not be the first tool as it is shown here but that is ok.

Click on Next.

You now need to add a Machining Plan. A machining plan dictates how the car will be machined. To add a Machining Plan, simply click on the Add button.

You will now be presented with the window shown below. The machining plan we will be using for the car is Raster Finishing. Simply click on the Raster Finishing button to add this to the Machining Plan.

Note also – you can RIGHT CLICK on a plan to get additional information and help!

You will now be presented with the window shown below. Make your settings common with the values highlighted.

RASTER ANGLES The diagrams show a variety of different raster angles that can be used. Although for an F1 car with the tether line guide to the back and canister housing on the right hand side the raster angles 45 and 90 are the most popular. This will ensure that the block is machined from the back of the car to the front of the car.

Then click on the Set Boundary to….Custom button which is shown by the arrow above on the right.

If you want to improve the finish of the car reduce the step over to a smaller value. The smaller you go the better finish you will get but the longer it will take.

We now to need to tell the machine where it is safe to cut up to. This value is determined using the Custom Boundary Rules

You need to adjust the X maximum value to reduce the machining boundary back towards the front of the car. If you increase the value you will see the blue transparent bounding box shrink in length.

We want to bring this bounding box to the front of the car while leaving a 3-4mm gap to allow the cutter to cut around the front of the car.

211mm is the maximum value you can use. If you use a value more than that you will machine into the Front Clamp Fixture.

Now click OK.

QuickCAM Pro will now generate the tool path for your car and you will see the toolpath appear over the car in white.

You can now click next.

You will now be presented with the Toolpath Simulation window. The purple block represents the balsa blank.

To start the simulation, simply press the ‘Play’ button

The toolpath will be simulated and you can use this to check that it is cutting the car as you had setup.

You want to check 2 things during the simulation the first is the it started cutting from the rear of the car and cut towards the front of the car. You also want to check that it cut around the front of the car.

Here is a video showing the toolpath simulation

If the simulated toolpath wasn't correct you can click on previous and go back to the machining plan page and double click the plan and make the required changes.

If the car was being cut from the front and working to the rear you need to change the raster angle to 45 or 90.

If it didn't cut around the front of the car then you need to adjust the custom boundary to give it more space to cut around the front of the car.

Once you make these changes the toolpath will go purple and you need to click calculate to recalculate the plan.

Now click Next.

Run the simulation again to confirm the settings are correct

If everything looks good click Next.

You now need to set the Datum Position for side machining. This must match the origin of your car model. The origin is set at the centre of the CO2 hole on the back face of the Balsa block.

By default the datum position will be the front left top of the balsa block.

Set the X, Y and Z values to the following.

X = 0.000

Y = 21.000

Z = -32.500

Rotate the view around to see the rear of the car to confirm that the datum position is located in the correct position.

Now ensure the post processor is Denford Metric Milling.

Now click Post Process

You will now be asked to save your cnc file. Simply give the file a name, choose your save destination and click save.

QuickCAM Pro is not capable of adding the axle holes to the CNC file so we need to add it ourselves

Using the CAD file of the car body we need to find the locations of the axle holes.

We need the distances from our datum position which we have set to the back face of the car at the centre of the hole. The red arrow is showing that location.

We need 3 dimensions. The first is from the back face of the car to the centre of the rear axle hole. For this example car it is 30mm.

The next dimension we need is from the centreline of the canister hole down to the centre of the axle holes. For this example car it is 19mm

The last dimension we need is from the back face of the car to the centre of the front axle hole. For this example car it is 150mm.

We now want to open the code we created in QuickCAM Pro in VR Milling V5

Once opened you should see the code in the editor window as shown.

We want to scroll down through the beginning of the code and find the M03 S23000 line of code it should be at line 41.

Click at the end of that line and press enter/return to create an empty line underneath it. This is where we will enter the code to cut the axles.

This is the code that we would enter for this example car, the code for you car will be different. Take not of the image as it shows the values in red where you enter your own values from your car to the code.

G00 X30 Y19 Z33.5

G01 Z-3 F2000

Z35 F4000

G00 X150

G01 Z-3 F2000

Z35 F4000

Type the code into your code in VR Milling. It should look similar to the screenshot showing the code for the example car.

Now click File and then Save to save the changes.