Pocket Milling of Letters

The toolpath generated from the text looks like a contour operation formed by the outlines of the letters and numbers. The area inside these contours - inside the letters - can be milled as a special pocket milling operation. The rest of this tutorial will show you how to do this.

1. Return to the drawing by clicking the tab Untitled Drawing (or the name of your drawing if you have saved the drawing).

2. Click on the button New in the Letter Milling pane, and enter a comment for the operation.

3. Click on the button Parameters.

4. Insert the new parameters as shown below (remember to check the option Mill Interior and disable Mill Outline).


5. Window-select the text.

6. Click on Show Toolpath - the generated toolpaths will now be shown on the screen.


7. Click the button Export Editor. Now the NC codes for the machining are shown in the editor.

8. Simulate the program to verify the toolpath the same way we did earlier in this tutorial.


It is possible to generate toolpaths with both Mill Interior and Mill Outline selected under Parameters. This will create both the pocket operation on the inside and the milling of the contours.

The example program "CIMCO 456" can be used as a subprogram to another program by simply cut-and-paste, but can also be completed as an independent program, providing it is supplied with the code lines for Program Start / Program Stop, Tool Change, and Feed/Speed, which you can quickly add either manually or using the Macro function in CIMCO Edit 6.