Post question: Adjustable VDI angle heads mill-turn machine.

[Bruce Caulley]

Ahoy!,

Is anyone using an adjustable angle head on their lathes with live tooling? Something like the ones shown here: http://www.evermore-tools.com/products1.htm

 

I am close to ordering a few machines for my new shop and can see the need at some point for a hole or slot to be on an angled face. Since I can't afford a multitasking machine until next year I thought these would be a good substitute for some parts.

 

The scenario I am thinking of for example would be a port on the end of a valve stem at a 45 degree angle to the axis of the part.

 

I have used an angle head on a 5-axis machine before, but Dave Thomson at In-house supplied the post. I have no MC seat to play with for a week or so, so my question is this:

 

Do I need a special post, or can the tool definitions in lathe handle this? I know I could "fudge" my way through a problem like this, but would prefer not to if there is a neat MC solution for it.

 

thanks

 

Bruce

[Bruce Caulley]

BTW, I have no experience with MC lathe.

 

Bruce

[DavidB]

Using a tool plane of right side rotated -45 around Y axis will give the corret Tplane.

I will look in to it Monday for you mate if it can be done with a Machine control def that is offered with MC standard.

 

HTH

[Bruce Caulley]

Dave,

I am pretty certain that I can get the MD correct by adding an aggregate and then defining the stations and angle etc,etc. When I was doing this on the 5-axis vortex the actual MC ops were easy, it was just the post that needed tweaking to support the aggregate head. I plan on getting an adjustable angle head as for certain some features are going to be at odd angles.

 

If you do get a chance try adding a flex (I think) aggregate to one of the tool turret positions and defining a station with a spot drill for example. Spot a hole at 45 and see what sort of output you get.

 

On the vortex post the tool length needed to be added to the tool parameter page and the post added the "swing length" from the aggregate definition. The more I remember about this setup the more I am certain this will be a custom post similar to, but not so complex, as the 5+1 axis post Dave Thomson did for me.

 

Maybe Dave will chime in???

 

Bruce

[DavidB]

Bruce we olny would do a feature like that on our Integrex.

If I did a turning job that needed an angled hole on our Okumas, I would then put the part on a milling machine.

 

Could you do that?

[Bruce Caulley]

Dave,

I could, but I would like the option not to. The angled heads are cheap enough that if I had a small batch to do it might be worth it.

 

Bruce

[Bruce Caulley]

bump

[Post dept]

Hi Bruce,

 

I can say I have setup for this style of machine before and the mathematics is quite similar to an integrex style machine, just because there is effectively another rotary axis that needs to be accounted for. The main difference being that you will manually have to set the head to a specific angle and you will only be able to do 3+2 machining rather then simultaneous 5-axis. That being said, the compensation for the tool length will be done in the post as it was in your vortex post that Dave did for you.

 

Chris

[Bruce Caulley]

Thanks Chris.