OT/ condutivity sensor in machine

[stonker]

We just took possession of our first horizontal last week. It’s a Toyoda FA400 and has conductivity sensors that look for contact from the spindle to the table. This is a brand new concept for me. My question is who has experience with this feature? Can I program an endmill to plunge an incremental value from the time it senses conductivity? If so does coolant screw up the readings? How accurate of results can I expect to get on depth using this method? I have a sheet metal job that has spot faces with a +/-.002 tol on depth but stock thickness and flatness can vary more than that.

[mmonica]

We have 2 OKK HMC that have conductivity sensors on them, we use them only for spindle probing. I'm not sure how they are wired in a Toyoda, on the OKK's we use the G31 skip command. The nice thing about this style sensor, you can get very creative with probes. I'm not sure you can use it while cutting, but you can write a macro program to set variables for each c'bore.

Mark

[TimHollis]

Maybe for setting you TLO?

Just a guess on my part.

 

Tim H.

[stonker]

I called the boys at Toyoda for help. G31 is the key. I can position to a clearance plane then G31 Z? F?. Once the cutter comes in contact with my part the machine stops moving in Z. Then I program an incremental move in Z for the spot face. I can see this feature will come in handy with castings.