In this lesson, we'll be comparing a traditional versus adaptive tool motion. After completing this lesson, you'll be able to, use Simulate to inspect a tool path and modify a Tool path perimeter. For this next lesson, we want to start by uploading the file Adaptive versus pocket. We've already created some tool paths, and we understand how we can use the adaptive tool paths to our benefit. But we want to explore a little bit more about what that actually means. So in this example, we're going to talk about a 2D adaptive tool path and a 2D pocket toolpath, and try to understand the main differences. This file already has a 2D adaptive toolpath, as well as a 2D pocket toolpath. The first thing that we want to do is select 2D pocket and select stimuli. At the bottom of our screen in the green bar, we can manually drag through the playback. What we want to do is to focus on what the tool does when it gets into a corner and starts engaging more material. So this is going to be where the main benefit of using an adaptive toolpath comes into play. So right now the tool is cutting on half of the diameter. So we're engaging a very large portion of this end mill, and what this is doing is, it's increasing the heat, it's increasing the wear on the tool, and it's also reducing the efficiency of how fast you can move in order to remove material. When we're using a traditional toolpath like this, there are going to be areas where the tool engagement is lower. For example, right here where it simply starting to remove the side of the part right there. You can see there's a small sliver that's getting removed by the end mill. This is going to be more aligned with how the adaptive toolpath handles this process. But as we get into these corners and we start to engage more material, these are the areas where you're going to start to hear and see chatter, you're going to start to increase the wear on your tool because the heat increases, and the chip sizes are going to increase as well. So this is where we're going to start to see are differences. Now, let's select adaptive, and go ahead and simulate that, and again at the bottom in this green bar, will start to drag. Once we get into the corner here, this is where we really want to start to focus on how much material is being removed. So as we drag this into this corner, you'll see that the tool is taking a small piece out. Then it's doing a small lift and a rapid movement back, and then it keeps working its way back over, creating those small micro cuts. What this allows us to do is dictate to Fusion 360. How much that engagements should actually be? How much material should we be taking off with each pass? It'll adjust the tool path motion, so that it keeps that consistent chip load. So we have a lot of these small rapid movements going back and forth, and if we actually tell it that we can cut in both directions and climb in conventional, it'll simply work its way back and forth. But in terms of making an efficient toolpath with a good surface finish, we want to make sure that we explore the adaptive toolpaths, so we understand how they work and how they approach corners. Because if you have a part that has a traditional shape pocket, if it's rectangular in nature or circular, then the difference between the two toolpaths, the adaptive, or the 2D pocket, becomes a bit smaller. Because you can work with the consistent chip load simply based on the shape of the pocket. Whenever you start to have pockets such as this where we have corners that start to pinch down, well these are the areas where we start to see the real benefit of an adaptive toolpath. As I've said previously, we want to make sure that we always explore the toolpaths we have, and try to understand exactly what's going on to make the best educated guess or judgment call as to which toolpath you should actually use. For my purposes, I always go right to the adaptive and then I explore the other options. Because in most cases for the geometry that I program, the adaptive works just better overall. So that's why I usually go to that option first, and then I'll always go back and check a pocket or check some other operation, just to be sure that I have the best cut possible. From here I suggest that you continue to explore these two toolpaths. Potentially go into each of these, and adjust some of the settings, then re-simulate and see how it affects the tool engagement on the part. For example if you go into adaptive and you edit, in the past's section, we can dictate things like the minimum cutting radius, the optimum load and the tolerance values. If we increase the optimum load, to let's say 0.125 and say okay. What it will be doing is that it'll be taking a larger cut each pass. Which means that we are reducing the number of passes that we make. So if we simulate that with the larger cut, and again we bring the cursor down into this green area, what we're now doing, is we're taking a larger cut in those corners. You can see we're engaging more of the tool, but it's still going to be consistent, it's going to use that amount of engagement for every pass that it makes. But these are the kinds of options that you want to explore and understand, and get some experience playing around with them to make sure that you're comfortable with changing these settings and moving forward. We will be exploring these toolpaths a bit more, and making some adjustments to these settings. So don't worry too much about exploring it on your own, but it is good practice to manipulate toolpaths that are already created, and get an idea for what changes. Once you're done, make sure you go ahead and save this file before moving on to the next step.
