I created a simple (almost the simplest?) model to start with - a piece of bar stock with 4 flats. Extrude a cylinder, then extrude a square on the end:
Into the CAM environment. 2D Adaptive clearing toolpath. NB: we are not wrapping the toolpath here - that would be used for a cylindrical machined surface. Here I'm just doing a simple 2D operation, then indexing the table before repeating the operation.
Once the toolpath for the first flat is working, you right click on the operation to simply create a circular pattern with 4 instances:
Simulation - in Fusion, the work stays stationary and the tool flies about to change the angle of attack.
Another tool for checking out the toolpath is ncviewer. This is browser-based and seems to work pretty well. It doesn't have any issue with multi-axis toolpaths.
Out in the workshop, time to sling the 4th axis stuff on The Shiz. Note the lack of chuck on the rotary table - I took that off when I was overhauling the thing and haven't put it back on yet:
Chuck back on and clocked. It's within a few thous. The chuck itself is well battered, so that's probably more than good enough for the current context.
Obviously it's not as good once I've slapped the piece of scrap in the chuck but from memory it was within 10 thou or so.
And here we go!
Cool. I only captured the first operation and the beginning of the second. But it clearly shows that the table moves in a reasonably well behaved fashion. There's a fair chance I'm going to have to make it a bit more real shortly by loading a real tool and actually setting up the work and tool offsets, then cutting some metal.
There.
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