Post Needed

[MetalMarvels]

Now that I have the undivided attention of several forum members and before the flame-wars begin!!!!

 

1) I am the legit owner of MC9.1 and also work for Honeywell where we have 4 licenses for mill/lathe/etc.... (sim numbers available and all that good stuff....)

2) I have discussed the post requirements with my reseller....

3) I have attempted (without success) to discuss the needed post with Hardinge

 

Having said that, I am looking for at least a starting point for generating a post for a Hardinge Cobra 42, 1997 vintage lathe (or a working post for it). The preferred method of running this lathe is for a left-hand spindle rotation due to the dovetail type configuration of the rotary tool changer. The Hardinge Conquest post is not a very good fit (right-hand rotation and some other rather large operating differences), although I could eventually beat it into submission.

 

Has anyone previously developed a post for this particular lathe that would be available for an appropriate fee? Bear in mind that I HAVE DISCUSSED THIS WITH MY RESELLER. He did not have a solution beyond "ouch, that would be a bear". He used a different word than "bear", but we won't go there.

[MetalMarvels]

oh.... I forgot!

 

4) No this is not my first post in the forums!

[Nominal]

quote:

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and also work for Honeywell

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Just curious. Did you mean you work for Honeywell, or that you do work for Honeywell?

Regards.

[chris m]

Gary

 

We have Hardinge lathes (Conquest T51SP and T42SP, as do a couple of other guys here on the forum) but I am unfamiliar with that one; what kind of control does it have on it? I would assume a Fanuc, but could be wrong (what model Fanuc if that it what you have?). I'm not sure what a rotary toolchanger is but our Hardinges also like M04 spindle rotation because they have linear guideways which don't like to be "picked up".

 

We use MPLFAN right now for ours but are in the process of tweaking our posts in one at a time; we'll probably do that one last because we have some custom G-code macros running in our programs for those machines. If you can post a sample of the code you want and a sample of the code you're posting I'm sure the forum members can work it out.

 

C

[McRae]

What is the machine configuration? Post a small file on the FTP with the chuck and tailstock etc drawn and also lay in a tool with the proper insert orientation. This may help wht the visual

[MetalMarvels]

Nominal,

 

I am the Air Force Programs Lead Engineer for Honeywell as well as the owner of Metal Marvels. Due to "conflict of interest" concerns, my private business (job shop) cannot do business with any branch of Honeywell, since I am otherwise employed by Honeywell. I also have to be really careful about business with local Honeywell Subcontractors.

 

Andrew, A picture is at this link: http://www.hardinge.com/Pages/cobra.html

 

In orientation, it is pretty much like a MORI slant-bed lathe (just not nearly as nice) with VDI tooling. In the case of this lathe, the cutting edges are oriented up with respect to the cut (rather than down like in a MORI). I think the controller is a GE FANUC 21T. I will try to get all of the controller data tomorrow - it is beer 4:30 time here!

[Cg]

we have a Harding Cobra 42. they have a fanuc 21t controls on them which is a very basic no frills striped down control. Ours is configured the same as most all cnc lathes in that the cutting edge of the tool faces down, not up as you discribe. which direction does your spindle turn with a m3 comand ? we have never had any problems with lifting of the liniar guides as Chris says but we dont push ours very hard.

 

Cg

[chris m]

First off, let me say that VDI tools suck; you have my condolences on that

 

That being said, back to the job at hand:

 

quote:

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In the case of this lathe, the cutting edges are oriented up with respect to the cut

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I don't really understand what you are saying here; if you mean that the insert is looking at you instead of being "hidden" by the cutting tool then you have left-hand tools like we do. If you really want to you could take any tooling you got with the machine and throw it in the dumpster (or send it to me ) and then buy right hand tools for the machine so it would be like your other lathes but I wouldn't suggest it. Hardinge recommends left-hand tools for some machines (Cg, our machines have a decal right on the turret along with warnings in the manuals saying "use left hand tools") because of the guideway design.

 

If you have a Fanuc 21T I would say that MPLFAN would be a really good place to start, just change your spindle rotation in job setup in Mastercam and you should be ready to go (just be careful to change it back to M03 when drilling!)

 

C

[MetalMarvels]

Chris, yes it is left-hand tooling... I apologize for the lack of clarity in my descriptions of the lathe - I am a mill guy with no pretentions of being a cnc lathe guy ( I am trying to learn though). Our management got us a "deal" on the Hardinge and we didn't get a vote on it. (don't you just hate that!) HA! Wait until they see the list of Hardinge VDI tooling that is needed!

 

I will give the MPLFAN post a whirl. The biggest issue was the tapping/threading cycles. The highly modified Mori post that came with the machine was very much "gutted" for use with the Cobra and didn't have most of the logic left in it. It turns out that the previous owner of the equipment hand-coded everything (yikes!!!).

 

Thanks for all the replies. I have gotten fairly good at messing with the mill posts, without dorking things up too badly. What is the worst that can happen - I don't own the lathe.

[billystein]

I have developed lathe posts from scratch. I found that it was better to use the EZ post and not use too many canned cycles. It takes about 100 times more memory but mc will put all the moves that you need. I would start without drill cycles or anything.

This will get you going until you learn the mp language.

Get the post manual cd from mc.

[chris m]

I must respectfully disagree. If you have a Fanuc control on a lathe (or a Yasnac, for that matter) it is not difficult to tweak the MPLFAN post to output canned cycles (at least turning and grooving cycles, I have not tried threading on ours) in the correct format for the machine. We have machines that use 2-line cycles, 1-line cycles, decimals, no decimals, etc. and have been pretty successful in getting this post to output perfect code. The Fanuc posts (MPFAN and MPLFAN) in their newest iteration (V9) are very well developed and relatively easy to modify to output the format you want.

 

I could not even begin to think about writing a post from scratch (my brain is not big enough for that!) but I have been successful using the existing posts as a starting point and would wholeheartedly advocate that approach.

 

C

[chris m]

Gary

 

I was just searching thru some threads for help on a problem I'm having and I stumbled upon this one; did you ever get this figured out?

 

C

[MetalMarvels]

Chris, the MPLFAN post gave me a good jumping off point and I have achieved somewhere around a 98% solution at this point. I am still working on a couple of "bugs" that aren't a real problem yet and will bring them to the forum if I can't achieve success with them.