I've pretty much quit using water line except for roughing because of the crazy computational times. Even for roughing sometimes it gets so long I say the heck with it, ........
I completely agree. It's too bad because I have many instances where water line MOPs seem much better suited. I do a lot of 2-sided machining and don't have a tool changer. As opposed to naming and saving multiple GCode files, I just enable/disable the applicable Parts/MOPs and send them on the fly. This makes the long WL compute times a complete non-starter. The scanline MOPS on the other hand compute quickly and easily......and just work every time. If there are areas better suited by vertical or horizontal, I just create additional bounding shapes accordingly.
I may be a special case since I'm just cutting Extruded Polystyrene foam patterns, but these days, I design in CAD to generate the surface and for using a .25D ball nose bit for cutting everything, even for flat bottom cutting. In foam, with .1 resolution and .1 stepover, you can't tell the difference in finish from a flat bottom cutter, and I lightly sand the patterns anyway.
As a result, I often have only one 3D (Scanline) MOP for the entire part, or at worse, several with different bounding shapes. Is it the most efficient as far as cut time? Of course not, but on my typical machine blank of 24"x12"x4", machine times vary from 30-45 minutes. Spending an hour optimizing the program to save 5-10 minutes of machine time or make a tool change on a one off just isn't worth it to me......if I was machining harder materials could be a different story, and when/if I use the program again, sometimes I make refinements then, but never adding WL MOPs.
Here's my last batch of patterns...with the hollows, obviously assembled from different parts, but almost all of them 2-sided 3D.
Best,
Kelly
