Important
1. No Undercuts
2. Correct Scale and Units
Do you have the right scale and units? Always use mm in the
exported file.
Measure known distances in your model with locators - just to be
sure.
3. Size
Very small parts can be hard to mill. If you are doing for
example small buttons they should not be high because that could
possible mean that they loose while milling. Small is ok if not
high at the same time.
Less important
4. No Collapsed CVs
If this is unavoidable, trim away a very small portion which is
covering the collapsed point. You could instead just put a small
skin where you have trimmed that hole.
5. Surface Normals
Set all surface normals to point outwards from the object.
Examine each surface with ObjectEdit->SurfaceNormal and reverse
the normal if necessary.
6. No Periodic Geometry
Detach periodic surfaces and curves. Can cause problems on NC
machines. Make it a good habit to detach periodic geometry.
7. Positive Quadrant
Place the model aligned to Z=0 in the positive X,Y quadrant. The
milling will be done with the milling head pointing in the negative
Z direction. From the top view, all the surfaces should be visable
and placed correctly in height, often that means at Z=0
8. Export only necessary geometry
Even though the milling machine does not need side and bottom
surface to mill you should export them so it is easy to see and
understand your complete model.
Pick only the surfaces that will be milled and then choose
File > Export and the Option box.
By doing so you are not saving for example the lights that is just
"trash" in an IGES file.
Choose IGES (or STEP) and Save.
Give the file a name without any extension. Not xxx.wire. Instead
just xxx.
Alias will automatically add the extension ".iges" (or stp) after
your name.
It will be saved in your Current Project in the wire folder.
Copy the file xxx.iges (or xxx.stp) to the folder "Iges
files for milling" on S5.
Note: Do not send the file with extension
.alias2iges because it is just a log
file. Delete it instead. It just occupies
disk space.
9. Leave space between parts
About 1mm wider than the mill tool. If you do
not know the mill size then about 17mm is usally a safe gap
distance. The gap size i depending on the choosen mill tool
size. Example for a 6mm mill a gap of 7mm is enough.
Happy milling
