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Oh my god Mazak's are terrible - Probing Routine Help


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I can think of at least 20 different controls I have ran. I've ran every machine configuration from manual to CNC. All the way up to 8 axis and some swiss machines. I have just been thrown back on a Mazak after 10 years of not running one and I just had to come here and blow off some steam. I really hope the Mazak engineers are reading!

 

We have a Mazak Nexus 510C-II. The door only opens to about 6" left of center of the spindle. Trying to lean in and see an indicator on the left side of a part is near impossible. And trying to reach your head far enough to see the indicator while your hand is on the jog handle looks ridiculously stupid. So you have to use the remote handwheel and a mirror. But then, the light in the machine is on the right side. So your indicator is in a shadow on the left side of the machine. So you need a flashlight. Now you have a flashlight and a mirror in one hand, the handwheel in the other and guess what??? You need to depress a button on the side of the handwheel to move the machine. So now I need a third hand. So I place my oil covered mini-maglight in my mouth, a mirror and the handwheel are being held with my hands, and I still can't see a ####### thing! This is by far the most ridiculous machine I have ever ran!

 

Don't even get me started on the control LOL

 

Whew, I feel better!

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It has a probe I am sooo sorry to say. But using it requires a ridiculously long process of first setting X Y and Z manually using a center drill or whatever and your eyeball. Then you have to edit the probe routines to tell the probe where to go in X Y and Z before you actually probe the part. It all works in absolute values. This all has to be done without the probe in the spindle because if it stays in the spindle too long the machine alarms out. It really needs to be a simple matter of moving the probe into position and running a small macro program inputting just a few incremental values. But as it is you have to edit positions, clearance planes, retract planes, Z depths, part dimensions, etc. Once I get more comfortable with it I will be ok. But for now it is just faster for me to use an indicator. If they expect me to run this machine much longer I'll be writing some new probe routines.

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It has a probe I am sooo sorry to say. But using it requires a ridiculously long process of first setting X Y and Z manually using a center drill or whatever and your eyeball. Then you have to edit the probe routines to tell the probe where to go in X Y and Z before you actually probe the part. It all works in absolute values. This all has to be done without the probe in the spindle because if it stays in the spindle too long the machine alarms out. It really needs to be a simple matter of moving the probe into position and running a small macro program inputting just a few incremental values. But as it is you have to edit positions, clearance planes, retract planes, Z depths, part dimensions, etc. Once I get more comfortable with it I will be ok. But for now it is just faster for me to use an indicator. If they expect me to run this machine much longer I'll be writing some new probe routines.

 

LOL. Dude whoever is teaching you how to use that machine, or whoever initially set it up, has no idea WTF they are doing.

 

Do you have Renishaw macro number 9023? That will solve all of your problems. If you don't have that, you can still use the manual Mazatrol probing routines, where the machine probes in jog mode (I don't remember how to use those ones though, because all mine have the 9023 macro).

 

Look in the program list to see if you have 9023 and I'll explain how to use it. There's nothing I can do to help the door only opening a little ways past center, but other than that, you should be in heaven with that control. Let me know what other control related issues are pissing you off, and I'll see if I can help.

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LOL. Dude whoever is teaching you how to use that machine, or whoever initially set it up, has no idea WTF they are doing.

 

Do you have Renishaw macro number 9023? That will solve all of your problems. If you don't have that, you can still use the manual Mazatrol probing routines, where the machine probes in jog mode (I don't remember how to use those ones though, because all mine have the 9023 macro).

 

Look in the program list to see if you have 9023 and I'll explain how to use it. There's nothing I can do to help the door only opening a little ways past center, but other than that, you should be in heaven with that control. Let me know what other control related issues are pissing you off, and I'll see if I can help.

 

 

I am not sure if we have 9023 in the Mazak or not. I haven't had time to explore this problem and get it figured out. Since you chimed in maybe we can do this now?

 

9023 more than likely is in the Mazak, but I am not sure without being there looking at the control. I know 9023 is in the Haas I run. If it is in the Mazak, can I just run the same simple programs in MDI that we use on the Haas? I am not at all fluent with Macro programming so looking at them leaves me a bit clueless. In the Haas there is software built in that writes little one line routines that call up the various macro programs that control the probe. You just have to position the probe within .400" of the location you want to probe and hit cycle start after entering a couple values. I have been telling the guy showing me "how to use the probe" this is how simple it is supposed to be. But he was trained by another guy I think and he is just using what works for him. It's just way too much time wasting for me.

 

Can you show me some example probe routines that you use?

 

Thank you for your time.

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Yep, 9023 is the one you can just MDI in. I don't like typing it in, so I have a few program numbers dedicated to it, and the program has the instructions right in it (even though the macro is only one line.)

 

Here's a picture of the program. It looks like the last thing I measured was a 2 inch boss. So all you have to do, is jog the probe roughly to the center, .100 or so above the boss, and hit cycle start. For a bore, jog it down into the bore, and then use A1.

 

Because the boss and web measurements take a few more inputs, I have about 5 different programs, 123-128, that I use for EZ Set. It's easier to just change to another program than it is to change the G65P9023 call from one of the longer calls like boss, to one of the shorter calls like Z surface measure.

 

 

A60B7AD8-A726-44E4-8A76-A8B222078AA6-11233-0000100D5B3C0883.jpg

 

If I'm just touching off something quick and dirty, I won't even use the macros for touching walls and the Z height. For the Z direction, just jog the probe until you see the light on the OMM change, then move the cursor to Z, and hit "teach". For X and Y, do the same thing, and then hit ".118 Teach" (for a .2362 stylus). It should take about 30-40 seconds to touch off the corner of a block within .001 (as long as your probe stylus is within .001).

 

Any other control gripes or things that seem like they don't make sense? I bought my first Mazak coming off of almost strictly Fanuc controls, 16i and 18 being the newest I'd used, and even back then, pretty much every aspect of the Fusion control was quite a bit better. If you're coming from a Haas or Okuma, you'll find things that maybe you liked better on the Haas or Okuma control - but if you're coming from mostly Fanuc background, you'll have a tough time going back. I don't use any Mazatrol though, so I can't help ya there.

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If you end up not having 9023, just fart around with the soft keys until you come across the MEASURE page. I haven't touched it in years so I can't explain how to do it off the top of my head, but these will allow you to probe bores manually. You'll use some combination of soft keys to tell it what type of feature you're probing, and where to write the offsets, and then you'll use the jog hard keys to bump the stylus into the surface, and it'll stop automatically when it touches. Sorta like manually measuring a feature with the DCC CMM.

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That is what I thought Joe. Thank you very much. I just knew this had to be easier than it was being explained to me. I just didn't have a chance to explain it to where he could understand.

 

My problem with the control is that everything you do requires 10 more button presses than on most other machines. And you have to press them in a certain order. And certain windows aren't available until you are in MDI, or manual, or whatever. Turning the coolant on manually requires three buttons sometimes!

 

If I had someone like you around showing the control to me years ago I would be better off. I have around 3 years time on Mazak machines. But I have never been taught the Mazak control from anyone that knew a whole lot about them. I can figure most of it out myself. Like moving a program to the HDD for example. I figured it out on my own. I just couldn't find how to run it from the HDD LOL. The Mazak is a steeper learning curve compared to most others I guess.

 

Speaking of running from HDD, can you restart in the middle of a program? We couldn't figure that one out.

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Do you have the one for probing the vise corner? Hitting XY and Z? If not I can just go through all these routines on the Haas and copy them into programs on the Mazak right? Because the ones you listed are exactly the same I believe.

 

So for an X web of 4" width probing 1/2" below the top of part for G54 it would be G65 P9023 X4. S1. Z-.5 right? This is going to burst my trainer's "you don't know what you're talking about" bubble ;)

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You'd need to write a little program to do the corner, moving in G91 between the three different G65P9023 calls, but it would be really easy. You could probably even move in 9810 protected positioning, but I don't know if that works in incremental? Never tried it.

 

Remember that the Z move in boss and web measurements is incremental from where you hit cycle start. So a Z-.5 is will go .25 below the part, if you start .25 above it.

 

What other keystroke combos are bothering you? Most of them are one or two soft keys max, but that does seem to be a common complaint from folks who are accustomed to the Haas format of a physical button for everything. I'm a fan of the coolant soft keys, but my machines have 6 or 7 different coolant/air options, and we don't really do job shop stuff, so it's extremely rare for me to use manual coolant. I use the "coolant stop" hard key quite a bit though.

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Yeah, I understand it's all in incremental. I am used to the probe routines from running the Haas. I was just unaware that it was basically the same on the Mazak. I kinda figured it should be. But I was being told different.

 

What keystrokes are bothering me? ALL OF THEM :D

Really though it's not so bad. I will get used to this machine and learn to like it. I shouldn't have spoken so terribly about it. Because it really does have some nice features. And the rigidity is really nice. If nothing else at least my ranting brought some help in here so now I know who to ask ;)

 

Getting this probing thing figured out will make a world of difference. No more indicators, no more mirrors, and no more asking a co-worker to hold a flashlight for me! The time this will save means my boss should cut you a check!

 

I love this forum!

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  • 8 years later...
On 11/2/2012 at 11:43 AM, Rotary Ninja said:

I can think of at least 20 different controls I have ran. I've ran every machine configuration from manual to CNC. All the way up to 8 axis and some swiss machines. I have just been thrown back on a Mazak after 10 years of not running one and I just had to come here and blow off some steam. I really hope the Mazak engineers are reading!

 

We have a Mazak Nexus 510C-II. The door only opens to about 6" left of center of the spindle. Trying to lean in and see an indicator on the left side of a part is near impossible. And trying to reach your head far enough to see the indicator while your hand is on the jog handle looks ridiculously stupid. So you have to use the remote handwheel and a mirror. But then, the light in the machine is on the right side. So your indicator is in a shadow on the left side of the machine. So you need a flashlight. Now you have a flashlight and a mirror in one hand, the handwheel in the other and guess what??? You need to depress a button on the side of the handwheel to move the machine. So now I need a third hand. So I place my oil covered mini-maglight in my mouth, a mirror and the handwheel are being held with my hands, and I still can't see a ####### thing! This is by far the most ridiculous machine I have ever ran!

 

Don't even get me started on the control LOL

 

Whew, I feel better!

To be honest, Japanese are very smart why they make such a so DUMP control like MAZAK?  The machine is an amazing thing to use it.  For the control, it is TRASH!!!!!

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