variaxis CRASH

[Bruce Caulley]

I know there are a few variaxis users out there so I would like to know if anyone has had trouble with the pallets falling off.

 

We have had 2 of these machines installed recently and about 4 weeks ago the pallet fell off one of them when it rotated around to the loading door. No big drama. We put it back on and contacted the supplier and they told us that swarf/chips had built up on the "hook" and that we should try and programme our jobs with the tools throwing the swarf away from the front of the machine. We thought that was a bit silly then, but just last night the SAME machine dropped BOTH pallets during a pallet change and now we have an absolute shambles. The supplier is telling us that we are not keeping them clean enough, but we have chip conveyors and coolant flushing chips away. We have about a dozen other machines with pallets and have never had this problem.

 

Is this a one off problem with this machine or should we try and alter our programmes to keep chips away from the front?

 

 

Any thoughts welcome

Bruce

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Seems pretty bogus to have to cut a certain way so chips don;t build up.

 

Sounds to me like a design flaw and that they need to show you in the sales documentation where it's mentioned that you have to cut so the chips go to the back of the machine SO IT DOES NOT FALL APART. That would be a Mazak right??? figures... $#!+ falls apart on those things when it gets hot and heavy. Tell the sales guy you want to trade it in for a Mori!

[Greg Williams]

Bruce,

 

No I am nervous!

Luckily we have had no such problems with our machine, Cleaning the hook is something that I do always before changing the pallet.

Perhaps you need a dirty big hose to blast the base coolant down into the hook area.

[robk]

As James mantioned... Design flaw.

That would be a big no-no here. Our pallets weigh over 1000 lbs. each and we run lights out production. I couldn't even imagine one of those things coming down especially with another 1000 lbs. of steel on them. If they had a better design you wouldn't have to worry about chips. BTW, we run Mitsubishis, so no such problem.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

---

...That would be a big no-no here. Our pallets weigh over 1000 lbs. each and we run lights out production. I couldn't even imagine one of those things coming down especially with another 1000 lbs. of steel on them...

---

Ours weigh in the neighborhood of 4500-5000 Lbs. fully loaded. If one of those went down... OMG ... I'm just shuddering at the thought of it.

[crazy^millman]

Yeah could not imagine having that problem on our's either. Beside how in the world do you know it is back right and square and in line and will cut a good part if the pallet falls off. Sounds like a bunch of crap to me. I would be having a serious problem with them and would be asking them when is the truck showing up to come get the machines. I guess there was not mention of make your problem run like crap to make the machine not load up in the sales call!!!!

 

I ran Mazak's for 7 years and made a ton of stuff for the VTC machine ot keep chips from being a problem. I have had to do this for our Kitamura. The sad part is they are aware of the chip build problems we have but have not told customers and was not happy to hear that. I have rigged up so rubber guards and rerouted the overhead shower flush to keep this down but know in a year going to need ot rip the machine aprts to keep my limits swithces from being ripped of the machine by chip build up under the way covers.

 

Good luck but would say falling pallets is a very seriuos major problem!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bruce Caulley]

Ron,

So you have let mazak know of this problem in the past? What amazes me is that they think we can control where the chips go when we have 25000rpm spindles. It bounces around everywhere before coming to rest. As for cleaning the machine regularly, what do they think the chip conveyors are for? We clean out after each shift anyway, but these are supposed to be a high speed, high production machine. Halving production to keep one eye on the "hook" defeats the advertised purpose of the machine.

 

Bruce