There's also less handling if you can get in-machine-inspection working right, reliably, and efficiently.

Whether or not inspecting on the same machine that made the part will meet your needs, will depend on your needs. If you want to do it properly, you should meet the same bar as for other measurement methods; get your machine laser / ballbar calibrated, do a measurement repeatability and uncertainty test, etc., and make sure that your uncertainty is less than 1/10 your tightest tolerance. You can include measuring a gauge block / pin / ring as part of your inspection process to warn you of any calibration drift, thermal expansion issue, or other problem.

The alternative is to reprobe frequently, up to every toolchange or even every cut if the tolerances require it.

Since the spindle is cantilevered out so far, if the front of the column gets warmer than the back, or asymmetric heating of certain other members takes palce, it will arch and lift the tool much more than the linear thermal expansion rate. This problem plagues the whole UMC line, in combination with poorly done thermal comp software. To fix it with thermal comp, they would have to add a bunch more thermocouples in several locations, and have a much more complicated compensation model. What I've heard works best on these machines is to turn off the thermal comp, and take every measure you can to keep the temperature of the machine constant within a very small window. For comparison, I get less than .001" Z change over 20°F on my CM-1's.

I've seen this problem on Fadal and Fanuc controls. Never seen it on Haas.

The old "wireframe" surfacing toolpaths have always given me very clean code when I needed it. Running modern machines I don't need it though.

Speaking of which, if patterns hold, we should be due for another brand new interface and version naming system again in a couple years. Any bets?

The rig I built to use for CADCAM at Conventus Orthopaedics in 2015 is still running strong as my 11 year old's gaming computer.

I think in order to help you, we need to know what you're doing. What exact cutters are you using, what holders, what machine, what cutting parameters?

Using an informative subject title will attract those more likely to be able to help with your situation.

Those parameters sound about right; you don't want SFM too high drilling in plastics, since they won't conduct the heat away. You could try pushing the feed a bit more perhaps, until surface finish starts to be an issue. I think tool life will be measured in total revolutions in the material, so a higher feed will give you more holes per drill.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, you don't want a laptop unless you really need a laptop. You will get significantly less performance for your money. Even if it's specced the same on paper, it will almost always run slower due to thermal throttling. It will die sooner, and it will be less upgradable, if at all.

You're just going to be banging your head against the wall trying to cut that with HSS. You'll probably need fresh cutters for each part, or at least every few parts. The glass filler is very abrasive. Even the cheap Redline carbide circuit-board drills (about $4 each) would be a big step up, but yes, you really want diamond coated tools for this. https://ecomm.productivity.com/catsearch/625/micro-circuit-board-drills/1?facet=[["vend_name"%2C"vend_name"%2C"RedLine Tools"]]

If you want something more affordable and don't mind buying Chinese: https://warwicktools.en.alibaba.com/productgrouplist-917314015/Pneumatic_clamping_system.html I think Haas might re-badge some of these and double the price. Hmm, looks the same as the Gimbel too. Warwick does say they offer custom badging.

It's easy to get the volume of a part in Solidworks, which you could subtract from that of your stock. I don't see much correlation between volume of stock removed and cycle times in my parts though.

Yup. You can divide it by depth, and as you say, create stock models as you go.

You're going to want to finish those ribs with each stepdown of roughing; they won't be rigid enough to finish if you rough it all first.

I leave all my stock models in the "top" plane. I used to change the stock model plane when flipping a part, but now I just flip the work offset for the next operation. Seems to work more smoothly that way.

If you get no other options, get probing.

This. It also creates a record of exactly what you imported and when. Working off of native Solidworks files in a product development company, I often had the problem that Part X Rev Y could exist in several different versions in different folders, as different people worked on it and emailed it around. Since going off on my own, I've also had clients email me revision changes without changing the revision number or file name.

That does look neat. I'm starting to think though, that a bar-fed mill-turn would be a more stable, reliable, lower labor solution, without any accuracy problems. Willemin-Macodel has some good looking ones.

When I say "broad", I mean relatively speaking. The flat bottom is about .250" x .800", with a .021" thick floor. We're also looking at hybrid machines, or moving the build plate to a mill after printing, so tight features can be skimmed. Not all brands of printer have 6/4-ELI powder available though.

Their tech says they can do 6/4-ELI. The tech also got back tome on tolerance, and claims .002". The parts do have a broad, flat, bottom, to which the support could be attached and wired off. The mechanical stresses on these parts are very low (the material choice is for biocompat and marketability), so I'm hoping stress relieving could be skipped.

I'm looking at something like this: https://xactmetal.com/affordable-metal-3d-printing-xm200c/ or this: https://www.farsoon-gl.com/products/fs121m/ for production of small, Ti6Al4V-ELI medical device parts. What tolerances can be expected once a process is fully dialed in? I figure if it can just be consistent and repeatable, the input model can be tweaked to adjust feature dimensions. I'm also wondering about support removal, and how labor intensive it has to be. Thanks

Go for it. Just make sure the drilled diameter is what the tap manufacturer recommends.