New to Horizontal Milling

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

Check the pallet changer clearances; they may be counting on a square being in a certain orientation.

[Colin Gilchrist]

Another noobie question; can I mount a 630mm baseplate on my 500mm pallet if I round the 4 corners off so they stay inside of an 800mm circle?

 

Just be careful about 'work envelope' vs. what will fit through the pallet change mechanism. As long as there are no clearance issues there, you should be good. Also, the weight of the pallet might come into play, as a larger pallet will reduce your max table load...

[g huns]

Just be careful about 'work envelope' vs. what will fit through the pallet change mechanism. As long as there are no clearance issues there, you should be good. Also, the weight of the pallet might come into play, as a larger pallet will reduce your max table load...

 

Yeah, weight becomes an issue quick. The max load is 1760lbs or 2200lbs, depending on options. Not sure how to tell.

 

I think I can easily handle 99% of our work with one of these...

 

 

And one of these stuck to it...

 

 

That is a really cool magnet. No clamps needed to attach it.

 

The biatch is that 1% that boss drags in here a couple times a year when he can't find any other work. It tends to be way too big for any equipment we have. On a VMC, you just shift it off to one side, cut what you can reach, spin it 180, and cut what you couldn't reach in the first set up. We had Mikron come in and "tune" the servos for overweight blocks. "Tune" is a just simple way of saying, made it run really, really slooooooooooooooooow.

[g huns]

Another crazy noob question; say you have to fixture a block, that in its rough state has a center of gravity makes it tippy. In its finished state, its center of gravity is fine. Can the block be loaded manually, skipping the pallet changer?

[jlw™]

Man I wish I could get up to your shop and be there to work with you while you learn all this. I freakin love the process and helping people and this is right up my alley.

[jlw™]

I don't know about your machine but every one I've ever touched had provisions to bypass auto clamp sequence and could be loaded manually and fixture manually. One time in a cheap phase of a company I had a fixture with 61 clamps that had I be ran down with a ratchet. One of the guys finally brought in an impact gun.

[g huns]

Man I wish I could get up to your shop and be there to work with you while you learn all this. I freakin love the process and helping people and this is right up my alley.

 

I love being helped.

 

eMC's own Brad Lisle has been a big help.

 

I have to give the local Gosiger peeps some credit, they have been very helpful and treated us like we bought the machine from them brand new.

 

I had some email contact with them and was not overly impressed. But their sales guy and a guy from Okuma walked in last week on a cold call. Receptionist blew them off, told them we just bought a new 5 axis and a used horizontal and sent them packing. She walked back and handed me the brochures they had left. I told her to run her arse out to the parking lot and flag 'em down. She caught them and they both proved to be most helpful in answering questions and addressing concerns I had. Got me the contact info for our local service and apps guys, and even had their parts guy give me a solid model of the machine for our simulator. I have always had to buy models from machine makers, usually paid 3-4 grand for one. Those were always serial number specific, the Okuma one is generic, but it'll be good enough for what I'm doing.

[Colin Gilchrist]

Okuma as a company is generally awesome about giving their models to the end users. I think it is an incredibly smart move on their part, since 99% of the time, it is for building simulation models.

[jlw™]

Not to mention, there's no way in NOT HEAVEN that you could reverse engineer a machine from the models MTBs pass out.

 

What about that Dropbox link Colin?

[Bob W.]

Another crazy noob question; say you have to fixture a block, that in its rough state has a center of gravity makes it tippy. In its finished state, its center of gravity is fine. Can the block be loaded manually, skipping the pallet changer?

If there is ever any question about balance I will load the part at B180 on the pallet so the imbalance will be toward the pivot axis of the pallet changer.  There is no way that would tip during a pallet change.  Also, these can be run like a VMC and loaded into the work envelope. My machines only pallet change with an M60 so if there isn't an M60 the program will terminate like any other machine.   I have never loaded this way however.  If you do decide to use the angle plate shown above and you anticipate large heavy parts you might consider mounting it backwards on the pallet.  It will take a few seconds longer to rotate 180 degrees every time you want to load and unload but it will solve 99% of potential tipping issues during pallet changes.

[g huns]

Anybody in the market for a 1985 vintage Enshu? We'll make you a helluva deal.

 

 

That sweet old Okuma-Howa, from around 1987 is up next. Everything on it still works, even the tool changer...

 

[Sticky]

I forgot I was going to attach some pics of how I do mold bases on a hmc.

 

I use the FCS system. I made two large P20 subplates which I permanently mounted to some angle plates I had that used to have t slot plates on them.

 

For size reference, the top surface of the pallet to the top of the subplate is 26.25", and the width of the subplate is 14.75" and 1.7" thick.

 

 

As you can see, the face of the subplate is behind the COR (center of rotation).

 

 

Each hole of the subplate has a H7 tolerance 24mm diameter bore and a M16 thread. To attach the FCS clamps or vises you use these tapered locating rings and shcs. The plugs for the bores are retained by a o ring which helps keep the bores and threads in nice shape.

 

 

These are the adjustable vises I use for doing the first ops on mold bases. The mold bases I am machining have to be parallel, and perpendicular within .00015", so I got a set of the adjustable vises. They have an element in the beds, and the jaws that allow for adjustment in Y and Z.

 

 

Small mold base mounted. This base is 3x10x16".

 

 

In hind sight I wish I had made a stronger effort to move the face of the subplate and further past COR. As it is, the back of the angle plate is actually touching my maximum swing, so I would have had to have gotten creative.

 

 

I use MCfSW to program, and programming inside an assembly with components like the FCS products make things very convenient.

 

 

[g huns]

That FCS stuff looks cool, but I'm leaning towards a magnet. I drew up a similar setup to yours and tried to get the vertical face as far past the center of rotation as I could. It will work, if I can get it lightened up enough.

[Sticky]

Magnet will definitely have a lower profile. But you won't have the adjustability or flexibility of the FCS stuff, if you don't need it, then the magnet will be sweet.

 

I do inserts, slides etc with the fcs stuff too.

 

For Op1's I use the vises for pretty much everything. I add the bores and threads for the FCS clamps to my workpiece at this time (purple in the mcfsw picture). Than for op2 the part gets clamped using the adjustable fcs clamps on another identical tombstone.

[g huns]

Farewell to a couple of mo-chines that paid for themselves 1000X...

 

 

Kinda sad to scrap a couple working machines. Even antique ones. I'm sure somebody, somewhere could put them to use. I just couldn't find them.

[g huns]

Always thought our shop felt pretty roomy, until today...

 

[mkd]

I love being helped.

 

eMC's own Brad Lisle has been a big help.

 

I have to give the local Gosiger peeps some credit, they have been very helpful and treated us like we bought the machine from them brand new.

 

Brad has been eceptionally helpful for me on my old M/T

matter of fact, he just diagnosed my case of anal-cranial inversion over email this morning.

:unworthy: :unworthy:

[g huns]

She's up and running. Techs are feeling pretty good about everything. Only thing broken so far is the limit switch up on top for the pallet changer. Somebody got a little crazy throwing the tarp over it.

 

Anybody know where to get the filter bags for the high pressure coolant tank? Techs recommended sourcing it from somebody besides them.

[Guest]

...

Anybody know where to get the filter bags for the high pressure coolant tank? Techs recommended sourcing it from somebody besides them.

 

What brand High Pressure?

[jlw™]

Google "sock filter" and take your pick.

[g huns]

What brand High Pressure?

 

Okuma's low, high pressure. Only 15 bar.

 

Google "sock filter" and take your pick.

 

More of a bag than a sock. Looks like it should be about 27"x17"

[?Mark]

 

Workholding? Holy chit, how am I gonna hang onto this stuff?  I can see a few tombstones with vises for our smallish stuff, but when I have to hold onto a 28"x28"x10" thick block, where I need it centered on the pallet to be able to rotate the c axis or even run the pallet changer, what do I clamp it to? Are there angle plate lookin thingies where your workpiece nests on the inside of the angle? Who makes them? Do I have to make it myself?

 

 

For parts like that I'd also look into a lang quick point system. You could face the small end, mill and tap holes for lang pullstuds. Then you could clamp the whole part directly on top of a lang plate and have 360 deg access to your part. That also takes care of centering all this weight on the pallet. I've seen about 2" dia drills going into steel about 15-20 inches from the locating face. That's quite a cut

[g huns]

I've seen about 2" dia drills going into steel about 15-20 inches from the locating face. That's quite a cut

 

Yeah, seems scary as hell. Never seen the Lang, but looked into the FCS.

 

Having a block that big with no support backing it up scares me.

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

2nd the Lang, using it here with good results.

[g huns]

Techs wrapped it up today. Clean bill of health. Worst axis is the X with a whoppin .0003 of backlash.

 

Oh, and those filters they said would cost a fortune from them, $26 a piece.