lathe canned cycle , yes or no way

[Goldorak]

my boss want me to use canned cycle for roughing on our lathes (all okumas)and I am against this idea

 

 

i try to find some advantages to work with canned cycle , and the only one a see is the operator can adjust roughing if the stock is not the same as programmed

 

if you have any other advantage , please tell me what it is......

 

the non-canned cycle is way more efficient and my post support okuma controller at 99% this way , i rarely got to manually edit my g-code and the toolpath is 5 to 15% faster (we do 100 to 10k runs so the difference is huge when you consider a 10% longer on a 240h production , you almost waste a full day!!)

 

and if i got to change to canned cycle , all the work ive done since november will be a big lost of time!!

 

finnally the only thing i want to know , is do you,mastercam's lathe gurus, see some advantage to use canned cycle

[chris m]

We use canned cycles a lot for roughing from solid bars. For our forging and casting work we don't use canned cycles because of the fact that they really aren't ideal [although we did use LAP4 with stock definition for roughing from forgings in our Okumas when we programmed everything with a pad and paper] but I do like them when I can use them. We do short run jobs that are relatively small parts [8" diameter or less], so a few seconds here and there don't really hurt me. I like the canned cycles because:

1) the operator can "see the part" better when they look at the code

2) the stock-on conditions are easy to edit

3) the DOC is easy to edit and the operator knows what the DOC is without doing any math

4) Once the canned cycle starts the operator feels comfortable taking the single block off and letting the machine do its thing, which some of them don't like to do with longhand roughing because they always think there might be a death move hiding in there somewhere

5) they take up a lot less room in the machine's memory, which, believe it or not is a problem for me sometimes

 

All of those things being said, my major concern is that the job runs with a minimum of fanfare and teeth-gnashing on the shop floor the first time and every time we run it. If I was making 1000 parts at a whack I would care a lot less about what made the operator comfortable and a lot more about what made the machine go faster; when your guys are doing [2] or [3] setups a day the goal is to make the setups go faster and I think canned cycles help with this because the guys have a 'comfort level' and know what the machine is going to do and what the machine did on the last job and what the machine did on the job before that and they know that U.010 W.005 D.240 F.012 worked OK on the last part so I'm guessin' it'll work OK on this part. I tell our guys that if the machine goes bang before the first G01 of each tool, its on them, but if it goes bang after the first G01 then its on me, but they still feel better if they can make an educated guess about what the machine's gonna do.

 

All that being said, the common inclusion of graphics in the CNC lathes now makes the use of canned cycles a little less necessary because the guys can watch the tools on TV before they run the job.

 

BTW, if you're making 100s of parts out of the wrong stock on a regular basis, somebody needs to get fired.

 

C

[ReDEyZZ]

It is also easy to adjust the depth of cut, that's the main reason we sometimes use them, so we can push our cut load to the max on the big lathes.

we use it on small runs when conditions are not well known yet, especially in exotics

 

Mastercams rough cycle has more options I use it most of the time.

[DavidB]

I use canned rough on all our Lathes here including the Integrex,Okumas and Nakamura's it's defenatly the way to.

I have never had a problem with canned rough cyles. I never us the FINISH canned cycle.

 

It's so easy to adjust depth of cut, feed, stock in X and Z, also if the stock material changes just adjust the start and end X value at the machine. If it was long hand you would have to redo in MC, repost and send to the machine every time the stock OD changed.

 

HTH

[Chris Rizzo]

quote:

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we do 100 to 10k runs so the difference is huge

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oh heck yeah on the big runs you do loose alot of time by settling for what the canned cycles give you.

 

prove it to your boss by running a canned cycle head-to-head with a well programmed standard cycle. then ask him which one he'd like.

[4xxx4]

I have been programming and running canned cycles on Lathes for 25 years and when used properly they don't waste time like you're trying to say they do. The machine has to travel the same comparative amount to remove the material that doesn't belong and if you actually do a comparative apples to apples comparison of each type of programming the difference shouldn't be noticeable.

The user friendly benefits have been mostly mentioned above but one I see missing is the ability to alter ALL the cutting parameters easily with canned cycles. This is a real need when you work for a cheap manufacturer who doesn't always have the desired cutting tools on hand.

A canned cycle can be tuned to run in seconds with a different tool compared to the 15 minute time out to do it in Mastercam. When we have a guy running 2 or 3 jobs at once it isn't as important for him to achieve cycle efficiency as it is to keep the job moving no matter what.

 

That said, many lesser qualified operators can still keep your job moving while you are sleeping if you use a canned cycle.

[Goldorak]

tanks guys,

 

i forgot to says that we mainly put "unqualified" operators on the machine

 

i program everything and i got 3 setup man to start the jobs

 

i definitvely got to make canned cycle work for roughing big parts in exotics (titanium a286 inconel...)

 

i think i will find a way to include both method of programming

 

 

quote:

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BTW, if you're making 100s of parts out of the wrong stock on a regular basis, somebody needs to get fired.

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most of time when this appened ,the stock is provided by the customer , so, fired him is not an option

[Bryan Johnson]

quote:

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if you actually do a comparative apples to apples comparison of each type of programming the difference shouldn't be noticeable.

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my experiance is that with canned, the roughing process does NOT blend each paas to previous pass, leaving steps along the profile, it then goes back and does a complete simi-finish of the profile to remove the steps.

This can make a big difference in cycle time.

 

Is this not the case for all controls? My experiance is mostly older fanuc.

[Bryan Johnson]

in my experience I find that I can not spell eperience

[chris m]

quote:

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Is this not the case for all controls?

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No, Okumas do not do this. I think you can shut that off in some Fanucs but that particular feature drives me f_cking nuts in our Fanuc controls

[4xxx4]

My newest machine is a 2k but either a Fanuc, Yasnac or Okuma I have run pretty much do it the same. When they rough (without programming the semifinish pass) the depth goes down by feature till it can't go further at that depth and then goes for another pass. When it reaches the deepest point it rough profiles all the last amounts less than full depth cut and the blend portions. The actual difference in cycletime is negligible at best and in some cases a canned cycle can peform just a bit better considering the machine's cycle doesn't take less than full depth cuts. I say "who cares when it gets blended as long as it happens."

 

When programing mills, do you post G81' for spotting or G83's for drilling? These are canned cycles as well and with just minor editing of the parameters it will work entirely different.

 

Using cycles effectively is the fastest way to prototype and I have been doing it for over 25 years now. I post canned cycles for thier versatility and ease of operators use. Since I don't make a whole lot of mass production type of work I can't see spending an hour trying to hone every bit of time out of a parts cutting time when all I might save is 5 minutes cutting on an extremely large workpiece......

[Goldorak]

4xxx4 for prototype it's ok

but on a 10000 pcs run , 1 second less per cycle represent nearly 3 hours of production

 

finally i decided to fix canned cycle