Fanuc Manual Guide i - Opinions

[Mick]

Does anyone here have any experience with these controls? A friend of mine has been considering some machine tools that have this control, and I was curious what they are like in terms of usability etc.

 

His other choices are Heidenhain or Siemens.

[within a thou]

Personally I love fanuc controls. and I have used all 3. I find siemans to be a bit of a pain and to have a lot of unnecessary features and screens to navigate through where the fanuc is a lot more straight forward and easier to find your way around with fewer sub screens.

[Mick]

Thanks for the prompt reply.

 

Is this using the Manual Guide I? And on a mill or a lathe?

 

I personally don't have any experience with any of these controls in terms of conversational programming, only offline programming. Hence the reason I posted

[RayD]

Manual Guide I is great on Lathe, has some minor issues on the twin-turret/spindle machine that I ran years ago, but it has probably been improved on the 31i Control. I'm sure for 2 axis its solid.

 

MGi Mill its not so hot, fine if your just doing simple pockets, or bolt patterns.

 

Siemens, powerful but cumbersome to use, everything is on a different screen.

 

Heidenhain, one of the most powerful conversational controls on the market, both mill and lathe. I have seen a lot of people over the years struggle with the control as they are a bit different than everyone else, but on the other hand I know guys(few) who are wizards on the things.

 

I would have no problem putting a Heidenhain control on the shop floor, only thing holding me back is the machines they are attached to

 

Almost every Conversational is a PITA to use in BG editing mode.

 

If it were me, Fanuc.. but I would use a CAM to program and save money not buy MGi option.

[Mick]

I really appreciate the responses guys. This is helpful information

 

Thanks!

[#Rekd™]

Mick,

 

The Siemens is great if you want to program on the machine without Mastercam.

 

Our lathe has the 810D control and you can make most things a lot faster there then in Mastercam.

 

Definetely more help and support around for Fanuc.

 

Good luck.

[Guest]

MGi has some functions that the "old" FANUC interface does not. Iindependant I/O Channel for one. You can have your I/O set to 5 on the Settings/Offset page yet while in MGi, you can press "M CARD" and it goes right to your Flash Card, or on the newer ones, you have the choice between USB and your flash CARD. To change G54 to G55, you can press 55 Alter and it changes. To change Y10.0 to Y12.0, you just press 12.0 and Alter. WHn you have your cursor on many g codes, it will tell you what it is in an area of the display. To select a program to run, in edit mode you just press O-List, highlight the program you want and press input. That program is now your active program. Copy, Paste, UNDO, yes you saw it right UNDO, and REDO. Lots more but you.

[Newbeeee™]

Mick,

For 2 axis turning, siemens shop turn knocks the pants off the fanuc manual guide. Way simpler to use and more powerfull. It is almost as simple as prototrak. We looked at fanuc and siemens when we were deciding what lathes to get and laughed at the fanuc in comparrison, so we went with the seimens and havent regretted it.

For 3 axis lathe (c axis), I think the siemens is also miles ahead, from the addional options I've seen on our control (although we can't use....)

 

I have looked at millling, and again the seimens looks way ahead of manual guide over fanuc.

I believe it can now import dxf files and it has neat features like area clearance cycles. You really don't need a cam system if you have shopmill.

I looked at manual guide on our fanuc mlls (oimc and oimd) and it is a joke to me.

That said, we're fanuc orientated but prog everything in mastercam offline.

Milling is more involved shapes and more ops than 2 axis turning, so as hockey guy said, you can get a 2 axis prog done on a siemens before mastercam is fired up.

But you wouldnt want to prog a milling job on the machine as it's not running and earnign you money while you're doing it (yeh I know there's background edit but does anyone really use this if you're doing complicated work?).

 

The only thing i would ask is how many people in his area know siemens? If he wants to get an operator locally, it may be best to stick with what everyone knows.

Have a look on practical machinist as well - this subject has been beat to death.

 

[Guest]

Siemens support is not so great here in the US. If you have peripherals (Laser/Touch Style Tool Presetter, Probing System, etc...) KNOWLEDGEABLE support is even more scarce.

[Guest MTB Technical Services]

Just to correct the OP.

Manual Guide i is a conversational programming control option, not a control itself.

It typical comes on the Oi-TD series as that's Fanuc's most basic control.

ezGuide i is another conversational programming option from Fanuc.

Manual Guide i is accessed via the C.A.P Softkey depending on the Machine Builder implementation.

http://dl.dropboxuse...ogramming 1.pdf

 

That said, for basic turning Manual Guide i is fine.

ezGuide is better.

Mazatrol for basic turning is still hard to beat.

It's the only shop floor programming that I would even allow.

Anything beyond that is a waste of spindle time.

Using them to program anything other than the most basic work is bad practice.

CNC Machine Time is the most expensive in any shop.

Machines make money when the spindles are turning and making parts.

 

All the controls have their pluses and minuses.

I'm partial to Fanuc because of the standardization and bullet-proof performance.

Fanuc's MTF (Mean Time to Failure) is over 27 years for the latest 30i Series (30, 31, 32 and PC variants).

Siemens comes in at about half of that.

All the other controls come in substantially lower than that.

[Newbeeee™]

Tim - have you used shop turn from siemens?

I have never used mazatrol and I know everyone likes it, but from what I have seen of it it doesn't look as nice to use as shopturn.

 

James- good statement.

We had an issue early on with our siemens where it couldn't count (there was no parts count at all in the 810 - who'd have thunk, a lathe that can't count???) and it threw alarms occasionally on boot up.

We had to estop and off/on which would cure it but it was a pita.

The MTB sent out siemens and the tech was great and cured the bootup (although he swore he never touched that fault but 3 years on the machine has NEVER had that problem following his visit ) and he wrote a R variable prog we call within all progs that part counts and gives cycle time as well.

 

Tim-talking MTBF - we have 3x oimc, 1oimd, 2x 31ia5 controls that are a combination of 24 years old (that we have had them).

The only things that have failed are on the oimc machines (oldest of all) which has been an MPG handwheel, 1x spindle motor fan (on top of machine), 1x cabinet fan, and 1x capacitor (the main big one) on the control.

All in all not much at all, and fanuc didn't make all those parts anyway.

For the siemens lathes (only 2) we have had for a combination of 5 years, nothing has gone wrong.

 

Now that I've said this, a sh1te storm of breakdowns is coming my way

[Guest MTB Technical Services]

Tim - have you used shop turn from siemens?

I have never used mazatrol and I know everyone likes it, but from what I have seen of it it doesn't look as nice to use as shopturn.

 

James- good statement.

We had an issue early on with our siemens where it couldn't count (there was no parts count at all in the 810 - who'd have thunk, a lathe that can't count???) and it threw alarms occasionally on boot up.

We had to estop and off/on which would cure it but it was a pita.

The MTB sent out siemens and the tech was great and cured the bootup (although he swore he never touched that fault but 3 years on the machine has NEVER had that problem following his visit ) and he wrote a R variable prog we call within all progs that part counts and gives cycle time as well.

 

Tim-talking MTBF - we have 3x oimc, 1oimd, 2x 31ia5 controls that are a combination of 24 years old (that we have had them).

The only things that have failed are on the oimc machines (oldest of all) which has been an MPG handwheel, 1x spindle motor fan (on top of machine), 1x cabinet fan, and 1x capacitor (the main big one) on the control.

All in all not much at all, and fanuc didn't make all those parts anyway.

For the siemens lathes (only 2) we have had for a combination of 5 years, nothing has gone wrong.

 

Now that I've said this, a sh1te storm of breakdowns is coming my way

 

I've played with Siemens ShopTurn and it looks pretty good.

After being trained on Mazatrol many moons ago, it still hard to beat for basic turning.

 

That siad, I'm still not a fan of programming at the machine.

It should be avoided for everything other than the most basic.

I have Macro Programs for cutting jaws and most of the utilitarian stuff you might need to do quickly.

 

You also have the issue of ISO and API certifications.

You are better off if your company doesn't have a defined procedure for programming and machining.

If you have a documented procedure that specifies off-line CAM for programming and you screw up

a part because you violated that procedure, pray you're not a facility with an API stamp.

If you lose your API stamp during an audit, you are out of business and all your material inventory just became scrap.

The places I do work for that have API stamps guard that certification like its the Holy Grail.

Even more so since the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

[Mick]

I should have made my post clearer. I'm aware that the MGI is a conversational function on the Fanuc control

 

This person is only looking at purchasing two mills, (no turning). Siemens support here I believe is pretty poor as well. As this person knows Heidenhain well, and there are number of experienced Heidenhain operators locally, I'm thinking that he will be best with Heidenhain,

 

The stuff they're doing is pretty basic, and they don't have the need for a full time programmer.

 

Again, thanks for the feedback everyone. I appreciate it.

[Newbeeee™]

Mick - no brainer Heidenhain it is.

Again that knocks the pants off fanuc for programming on the machine and getting the job going. Half of the south of England has heidenhain for this reason, and it's big for 5ax because of it's ease of use (cycle 19). You can also get a stand alone programming box so you don't have to program on the machine.

 

What's the weather like down under? It's been wet and bloody freezing here and we're only 2x weeks away from 'flaming June'?

 

[Mick]

Mick - no brainer Heidenhain it is.

Again that knocks the pants off fanuc for programming on the machine and getting the job going. Half of the south of England has heidenhain for this reason, and it's big for 5ax because of it's ease of use (cycle 19). You can also get a stand alone programming box so you don't have to program on the machine.

 

What's the weather like down under? It's been wet and bloody freezing here and we're only 2x weeks away from 'flaming June'?

 

 

Haha, "flaming June". It has been wet and cold here, and we've had a couple of frosts. I never used to mind the winter months, but now I am older, I'm less entertained by them.

 

Yes, my opinion is that the Heidenhain is the most suitable option. The last company I worked at had two borers from the UK, which were retrofitted with Heidenhain, and two five axis machines that had TNC 530i controls on them. They never missed a beat, and they were easy to programme.