les are you looking into implementing a a peel/or dynamic style for material removal, currently for pockets you can choose linear or spiral. Recently I’ve been using a different program just for the peel method, really helps with tool loading. The other software is just so clumsy and hard to navigate. Would be great if sheetcam did this as well.
Trochoidal milling is something I would like but add but it is quite a long way in the future I am afraid.
Old post bump…
stumbled across this with regards to trochoidal milling…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORJ-Q3TFW5o
and this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxW05scvSKY
just wondering if any closer on the cards for sheetcam?
worth a bump… 
Every so often I look at trochoidal milling and my brain starts melting. It’s not an easy one to implement.
To be honest I doubt if I’ll be getting to it this year. Turning is the next big project for SheetCam.
not a problem Les, I’ve been slowly switching to Linux (getting my head into it) and I was looking at a milling path, and wondered if estlcam ran on Linux… well it doesn’t… not a problem, I thought Id just ask
understand completely, to be fair no one is really asking for it, other than me occasionally when I have a thought about it once in a while
with all these updates of late, i keep hoping this is coming!!
But you should keep that in mind for future to stay competetive. I recently read about that some people decided against Sheetcam because the competitor offered trochoidal milling.
I would rather a software be REALLY good at something, than a mixture of everything.
Sheetcam is REALLY good with plasma and 2.5D, and its ability to edit the post processors easily to your needs (unlike fusion 360 in my experience).
there are other features (like the ability to convert images to DXF files) in lightburn (for $40USD per year, and a slight discount for renewal), and estlcam which does trochoial milling (for $59USD)… and then there is Vectric… which has eye watering costs (but are brilliant at wood, just not plasma!)
Sheetcam with plasma is in my opinion by far the market leader and is very simple to use, and I have collected almost all of the addon modules over the years, including rotary, laser, drag knife and v-carve.
https://lightburnsoftware.com/collections/frontpage
https://www.estlcam.de/estlcam.php
https://www.vectric.com/purchase
Whilst I am sure you can get by in life with a hammer and an adjustable spanner that can do every DIY task you need, at some point its best to buy the right tools for the job… sure there are some spanners that can do metric and imperial (metrinch) but they may struggle on some tasks too… hence I have a selection of (cost effective) tools + software and choose the right tool for the task.
To be honest, most people who truly need trochoidal milling probably also need other more advanced cutting features that aren’t available in SheetCam. In that case they are better off looking at a package more suited to their application.
SheetCam has always been aimed towards machining sheet materials and panels. My main markets are plasma and wood working. While it can do basic milling, that isn’t really my target market.
Just to be mentioned…
+1 for some peel milling functionality. Even a macro function that automatically creates a whole bunch of copies of the same contour milling operation but with reduced “Finish Allowances” for each copy would be a nice start. Just a wish list item.
Fortunately most of my milling is in soft materials, so traditional milling techniques are fine but the odd occasion when I do mill harder materials (for my mill) I still use Sheetcam, but actually manually draw in every single cutting path into my CAD to perform the cut.
Troy
Even a macro function that automatically creates a whole bunch of copies of the same contour milling operation but with reduced “Finish Allowances” for each copy would be a nice start.
That’s effectively what the spiral pocket does. It just does a series of offsets then joins them together.
That’s effectively what the spiral pocket does. It just does a series of offsets then joins them together.
Les, true, in a broad sense, yes the fundamental mechanism is the same, but what I was thinking of is something that can work for both inside and out (particularly outside). I suppose you could perhaps add an additional boundary around the outside of a part to be peel milled and spiral cut in between although not very efficient as there would be twice the tool path than necessary.
Troy
I see what you mean now. Using multiple outside offsets tends to create some pretty inefficient tool paths in many cases. I’ll need to think on this one.
Yeah, I’ve heard that modern high speed milling G-Code files can be x10s to x1000s the size of traditional milling method files. I guess the trick is to keep the cutter down cutting (reducing the clearance retractions) on all those shaving passes.
Troy