Chip conveyor and dynamic mill issue

[peon]

Due to the increase in the material removal rate and the length of the chips-flakes created by these toolpaths, our chip conveyors are getting plugged and have caused some damage and operator time. I'm sure a few others have encountered this. Please post your solutions. I'm wondering if there is any way to speed the corkscrew conveyors since the ones on our Johnford machining centers are way too slow. In my opinion, this is a good problem to have, but the only current solution I have is to cut the DOC in half and slow it down a bit. I'm stubborn and don't wanna do this and would rather update this shop with some newer and nicer equipment, but that is not my call and won't be an option.

[Joe788]

What material is causing the buildup? If it's aluminum, you could try a serrated edge tool like the Destiny Diamondback. It makes more "traditional" looking chips even with a huge DOC. It's not going to help the volume though!

[peon]

Always steel here. 4140, H-13, P-20, 420SS in most cases

[SKIR68]

i bet your in a mold shop! Call your maintenance guy (jim) down and ask if he can speed up the motors on the augers.

[peon]

i bet your in a mold shop! Call your maintenance guy (jim) down and ask if he can speed up the motors on the augers.

 

Ha Ha. What maintenance?

[SKIR68]

We had a couple of Junkfords, err...I mean Johnfords in our moldshop. We used them for roughing cores and cavities and prepping blocks for heattreat. the chip augers WERE slow as hell,

I think we had our maint guy (Jim) install different motors. anyways, they filled up the little tubs TOO fast and we had to get bigger chip bins! Anyways... Jim said he got the motors from Grainger.

Just call your machine distributor and they can tell you what motors to upgrade with. Good Luck!

[peon]

Thanks Skir! I'll been checking that. And you can bet you will not see another Junkford in the shop again!

[SKIR68]

Actually they werent all that bad, ours were equiped with high speed machining and Blum lasers. There are a fairly rigid machine. We had alot of quality issues regarding sheet metal, way covers and the tops of the spindels vibrate loose every few weeks.

And theres no real good way to get the waylube off the top of the coolant. They were pretty good "hoggers", good for what we bought them for.

 

 

 

[peon]

Actually they werent all that bad, ours were equiped with high speed machining and Blum lasers. There are a fairly rigid machine. We had alot of quality issues regarding sheet metal, way covers and the tops of the spindels vibrate loose every few weeks.

And theres no real good way to get the waylube off the top of the coolant. They were pretty good "hoggers", good for what we bought them for.

 

We've been finishing with these machines, but the spindle growth can range up to .003" and I have seen it grow up to .005" on very long runs at RPMS above 20,000. The gibs were loose the day the machines were dropped on the floor causing a drift ranging up to .007" on the Y axis on the larger machine. It took three years and Johnford couldn't detect the problem and left us hanging. We finally found a local repairman whom discovered the issue and fixed it. I wouldn't recommend these machines to anyone. You get what you pay for and I hope that lesson was learned.

[SKIR68]

We use Makino v33's for finishing trodes and hard tooling, we have a 5axis mikron too. They all have 30 grand spindels but you just can't beat them for accuracy and dependability.

Well, the mikron can ONLY be used for light finishing. We don't usually watch dims too closely on parts comming off the Johnfords, they are always +.03 stock on parts that are pre-heat treat.