Fanuc Robodrill

[silky_johnson]

Never thought much about the Fanuc Robodrill. I knew a sales guy for Methods that once said they sell 60 a month!

 

Anyways....I thought this was impressive for a budget machine.

 

[Newbeeee™]

Having two of them and not meaning to knock your words, but one thing they're not is budget.

Astonishing value for money is what I would say, even awesome (which is waaaay over used nowadays but not in this case).

I was told that if we got the 1st one, we'd quickly want a 2nd. Which we then got.

Stunning.

[Guest]

RoboDrill's are the freaking $#!+. There's a couple that are close, but the Robo is still the standard.

 

My only gripe is you can't get 'em with scales. You can get your rotaries with scales, just not the linears.

[crazy^millman]

Never thought much about the Fanuc Robodrill. I knew a sales guy for Methods that once said they sell 60 a month!

 

Anyways....I thought this was impressive for a budget machine.

 

What is cool is Mastercam can program that part all say long and get the same results can also show the machine, backplot and simulate it just like that as well.

[civiceg]

My only complaint is that the machines grow as they warm up more than my liking and no one can suggest parameters for thermal compensation. X axis grew a little more than a thousandth over 24 inches with no compensation. The only suggestion from our dealer is just "play with it". But the ball screws are just so darn cute looking. For parts they were designed to make you cant beat them.

[silky_johnson]

Crazy.....so you have used hypermill before?

[Guest]

The Thermal Comp does work well but you have to "teach" it. There's no getting around that. All thermal comp works that way. IIRC you have to run your production part, make no offset comps and track the changes. Put those changes and the timeframe of the changes in the Thermal Comp Settings and you'll be off to the races. Now, if you change your production habits you'll need to teach it again.

 

You have to remember what this machine was designed for; high production, constant running so they built the thermal software around that. So if you change your production mix often, you'll need to do adjust your Thermal Comps often. But it does work and work quite well.

 

There's literally a 1' tall stack of books that come with them. One or two of them are the Operation Manuals for the RoboDrill. In there is the info about it.

 

HTH

[crazy^millman]

Crazy.....so you have used hypermill before?

 

I have a very good friend using it and it is very good software, but I want to make sure people understand Mastercam can accomplish the same task. As someone who earn his living from programming Mastercam I want to make sure the resident troll see the people like myself that he calls stupid and ignorant for doing so sees that as well.

 

You got a seat you are willing to give me a so I can use it?

[crazy^millman]

Was just and open house where Open Mind was taunting all their abilities and putting Mastercam down. Then 2 of the customers got up and gave good reports about Mastercam. I was laughing on the inside. Then during one of the 5 axis rock star demos there was an uh oh where a tool got buried. Everyone stopped what they were doing. All tools people use are good if they are used correctly thing is I seen that as more of taunting the software than the Robodrill.

[civiceg]

The majority of the work on the robos is low tolerance production, not done by me. However, they were bought with the intention of doing a job that is now in the prototype phase. Not allowing for much thermal comp tweaking when i have to two parts to make two parts. Got the z axis figured out pretty good by running .02 higher and checking depths, never messed with the x axis as a result of pushing the tolerance already and not wanting to scrap it. Ours are equipped with 24k spindles, have heard problems from other shops needing spindles due to maxing out the rpm constantly. We set the max for 21k, no problems 1 year in.

[Guest]

You can run all day everyday at 19k for a long, long, long time; think years. @24k, I think you can run it for 20 minutes straight at that RPM, it may be longer, but there is a limit, then it thermals out.

[TK-32™]

Dont forget to grase them up often and the robodrills will run luke champs

[Mr. M]

A "Grased Luke Champ"

[jeff]

I've always been impressed at how quickly those things change tools.