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Compensation Poll - Take the poll


I think your compensating for something.  

438 members have voted

  1. 1. Which comp type do you use?

    • Wear comp only
      269
    • Control comp only
      46
    • Some of each
      92
    • Never use comp
      24
    • What's comp?
      7


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On 10/20/2017 at 2:04 PM, kunfuzed said:

Wear.

I did work at a shop years ago that did something that seems odd now, they would program finish cuts with wear, but roughing cuts with computer.

Maybe to save some characters to fit in the machine?

I use it all the time even on a chamfer because I don't feel like clicking the dialogue box lol.

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On 10/20/2017 at 2:04 PM, kunfuzed said:

Wear.

I did work at a shop years ago that did something that seems odd now, they would program finish cuts with wear, but roughing cuts with computer.

Why is this Odd? This is exactly how I program when given a choice. I use 'Computer' for all Roughing passes. I'll never use Comp on a Roughing path, so why bother setting it to 'Wear' for the roughing cuts? For the Finish cuts, where I need the ability to compensate, that's where I'll enable it. However, in this scenario, I would also very rarely be using Contour for roughing. 2D Dynamic for anything that isn't "finish".

The other reason I program this way is because I'll push the roughing tools to their maximum. No re-grinds would work in that situation. Use the tools until you've extracted the maximum value from them, then recycle and push a fresh tool...

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On 10/24/2017 at 6:01 AM, Colin Gilchrist said:

Why is this Odd? This is exactly how I program when given a choice. I use 'Computer' for all Roughing passes. I'll never use Comp on a Roughing path, so why bother setting it to 'Wear' for the roughing cuts? For the Finish cuts, where I need the ability to compensate, that's where I'll enable it. However, in this scenario, I would also very rarely be using Contour for roughing. 2D Dynamic for anything that isn't "finish".

The other reason I program this way is because I'll push the roughing tools to their maximum. No re-grinds would work in that situation. Use the tools until you've extracted the maximum value from them, then recycle and push a fresh tool...

I suppose it's not really odd, and truthfully, I hardly ever rough with a straight 2d also.  Buuuuut.... I have run into situations where I wanted to increase or decrease the stock to leave at the machine, but very rarely. Also I don't "bother setting it to wear", it's just already defaulted there. :P

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52 minutes ago, Matthew Hajicek™ - Conventus said:

It just reverses the polarity of the neutron flow.  Oh, and it puts material back on the tool; you should be using this about half the time to make your tools last forever.

Blimey - A "putting back on" toolpath?

That will come in handy...

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It had actually not crossed my mind that anyone would by choice employ the 'control compensation' method until the issue came up a few years ago on my first day on the job with a new employer. During 'orientation' the supervisor informed me that their policy was to use what they termed 'centerline programming' with the compensation applied at the control. I was absolutely blindsided by this news and my incredulity at hearing this was clearly betrayed by the dumbfounded 'for what possible reason?'' look on my face. Afterall I had to believe the genius developers of APT at MIT had necessarily included the 'CUTTER' statement for good reason( yes, I know you can set it to '0'). Anyhow, I was thankfully tendered an instant 'get out of jail', when my prolonged look of disbelief was rewarded with an offer that I was free to use whichever method I was more comfortable with. Not totally sure but I think some of the older machines I worked on did not have diameter compensation anyway.

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okay i have a question, once you get this info which i think is about as useful as a kick stand on a dinosaur. what are you going to do with it?

i will say i have used reverse wear! why if you run old machines (junk) that could not take a negative value in the diameter this is the only way to make it go.

to top that and really make all you comp, no wear, wear nuts cringe:(. i ounce went to a shop that had a few old machines that could not take the negative number, so the whole shop new machines and old all  had to programed reverse wear  so no one would screw it up going from machine to machine. talk about making your head spin :blink:

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

     When cnc controls first came it seemed standard to plot the part and use a diameter or radius setting to offset the tool.  You could use the same program for a reground tool or smaller endmill.  No need to type a new program on the flexowriter.  Life was simple with control cuz that is all we knew.

     Then we got brave and did complex 3d paths for molds programmed with formulas arranged in gwbasic.  Wow these computers are ok.  I never could have input all that data from my slide rule.

     Then mc made all toolmakers equal and gave us wear, computer, etc and everyone started using wear so I did too just to conform.

     Then blum laser came by and could dynamically input the tool length and diameter very accurately.  But not all machine tools have tool preseters on them.  

     In time more reliance will be placed on using tool measurement devices as we see more factory automation.  I feel that this will drive the next generation of machinists to move back towards control programming for the 2d footpaths.  Sister tooling will become more prevalent also.  

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12 hours ago, bobwiss59 said:

     In time more reliance will be placed on using tool measurement devices as we see more factory automation.  I feel that this will drive the next generation of machinists to move back towards control programming for the 2d footpaths.

I don't agree with this part.  The biggest endmills I use frequently are about $40 new, so I have no financial incentive to regrind.  I tried it once with a batch of about a dozen, having them reground by the manufacturer, but the cost of regrinding plus the cost for the time to deal with them came to about half the cost of new, and the life of the regrinds was only 25% - 50% of a new cutter and they would fail catastrophically.  Add in the lost time for having to replace tools more often and I was behind.

Automation works best with consistent, predictable inputs and conditions.  I think that increasing automation will reduce the use of regrinds in favor of reliability, with the possible exception of very large and expensive cutters, but those are often indexable.

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On ‎10‎/‎26‎/‎2017 at 10:00 AM, newbeeee said:

Blimey - A "putting back on" toolpath?

You have one of those? And all these years I have been relying solely on my add-on tool, you know the one with the translucent shank that passes through "tooling".

Only problem is I keep them on a shelf  by the door, with my magic wand and EVERY day I forget them.......

I mentioned this one day to one of our machinists and he quipped, "I have a shelf like that......its where I keep my enthusiasm":rofl:

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1 hour ago, nickbe10 said:

You have one of those? And all these years I have been relying solely on my add-on tool, you know the one with the translucent shank that passes through "tooling".

Only problem is I keep them on a shelf  by the door, with my magic wand and EVERY day I forget them.......

I mentioned this one day to one of our machinists and he quipped, "I have a shelf like that......its where I keep my enthusiasm":rofl:

On one of my first scrapped parts from undersizing something one of my colleagues Told me its best to Run the spindle/tool in reverse and sprinkle metal chips on the part and it adds material back. Haven't tried it yet but in theory it sounds just Great!

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Recently I worked on a project that required me to use control comp. It definitely reaffirmed my stance on it. Control created more challenges and the setup guy actually scrapped a part and cut into the fixture because he forgot to add the radius value into the control. I understand human error happens no matter what we're doing but if we were using wear the value in the registry would have been small (<.5mm) even if it was left over from a previous tool. instead my 20mm tool drove into the part by 10mm. Not a fun situation for anyone. Luckily that part of the fixture was easily replaceable and they had plans to make new ones anyway.

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On 10/26/2017 at 12:06 PM, kunfuzed said:

BTW, how come "Reverse Wear" isn't on the poll?!  I really want to know who uses that!  Especially since I really don't know what it is... :P

i don't know if this question got answered because I stopped reading a couple posts past it. lol.

reverse wear is needed for controls which cant use negative numbers for dia / rad comp. if you're climb milling it'll output a G42, whereas wear and computer outputs a G41.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On ‎12‎/‎28‎/‎2017 at 6:26 PM, BenK said:

Recently I worked on a project that required me to use control comp. It definitely reaffirmed my stance on it. Control created more challenges and the setup guy actually scrapped a part and cut into the fixture because he forgot to add the radius value into the control. I understand human error happens no matter what we're doing but if we were using wear the value in the registry would have been small (<.5mm) even if it was left over from a previous tool. instead my 20mm tool drove into the part by 10mm. Not a fun situation for anyone. Luckily that part of the fixture was easily replaceable and they had plans to make new ones anyway.

For shops that insist on using this method, I insist on using G10 Lines in the Program Header to "programmatically" set those values. Once I started doing that, I haven't missed entering an offset again. No system is ever foolproof, but this just takes the operator out of the equation. Plus, if you ever need to re-run the job, all the offsets are saved into the Header. Just make sure that none of the tool lengths have changed, and tools haven't been swapped out.

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1 hour ago, Colin Gilchrist said:

For shops that insist on using this method, I insist on using G10 Lines in the Program Header to "programmatically" set those values. Once I started doing that, I haven't missed entering an offset again. No system is ever foolproof, but this just takes the operator out of the equation. Plus, if you ever need to re-run the job, all the offsets are saved into the Header. Just make sure that none of the tool lengths have changed, and tools haven't been swapped out.

Where a dump program comes in handy where it searches out the parameters and dumps the current values into your G10 line.

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