Trochoidal milling

This option enables you to replace the straight lines in a tool path by circular moves with a constant radius.

Potential benefits include:

• Faster metal removal

Making the constant circular curve the only direction change enables a high feed rate to be consistently maintained.

• Longer tool life

The cutting edge is in contact with the material through only about 5% of the cutter’s revolution vs. up to 50% for more conventional cutting. Cooling of the tool is improved.

Parameters of trochoidal milling

The Trochoidal dialog box enables you to define the parameters of trochoidal milling.

Radius

This field defines the radius of the circle that describes the movement of the tool.

Step

This field defines the distance between the centers of two adjacent circles that describe the tool movement.

Engagement angle

This field defines the angle measured between two vectors describing the tool contact area with the machined material.

During the calculation, SolidCAM checks the engagement angle at each tool position defined by the Step parameter. If the engagement angle is greater than the specified Engagement angle value, SolidCAM at this position performs a circular tool movement with the radius defined by the Radius parameter. If the engagement angle is smaller than the specified Engagement angle value, SolidCAM does not generate a circular movement at this position; the tool moves to the next position.