Could you fit four Brothers with automated loading in the same footprint and price?

I'd love to have those to play around with, but being a small-batch prototyper I can't justify it.

Your machine may or may not revert "G1" to "G01" on loading though.

The "Pocket" algorithm dates from the 80's I believe. There are the "Parallel Spiral, Clean Corners" and "Constant Overlap Spiral" methods which may help. As said above, "2D Dynamic" is the modern way of doing it.

^^^^ What he said.

I wonder how much of the purchase price is that fancy bodywork on the enclosure...

It's all about whether the move exceeds the bearing spacing or not. If not, it can push all the lube out of the way and have dry metal-on-metal rolling, causing false brinelling. I learned about this the hard way cutting .020" wide slots with a .010" endmill. 12 slots per part (indexed on a rotary so they're all in the exact same Y position), 1/2" long each, 12 parts, ruined my thrust bearings on the Y axis. Got them replaced, then next time I had to make the parts I'd cut a third of a slot, pick up, move 3" diagonal and back, then cut another third, etc. No damage since. So in my opinion, if you're dynamic milling around a part in different places, you should be fine. It's the long narrow slots along one axis that'll kill it.

Download all the programs (including 8000's and 9000's) into a folder, then use Super Finder XT or similar to search within all of them for the strings "#8" and "#9". I use it to find programs that contain a certain tool.

I've used OSG, Kennametal, Redline, Harvey, and a few others. For me the deciding factor is usually which drill I can get first, and it usually only has to make a few parts. They've all met my needs.

I don't think someone slapping together their first budget CADCAM computer will be working at that level.

Attach your file and we'll take a look at it.

I've occasionally added a spindle reverse to thrown chips off a drill. I've also seen, but not done, having a wire brush mounted somewhere in the machine to run the tool backwards against while pulling up.

I noticed they were taking really light "roughing" cuts with a really small tool too. Is that all the balls that machine has?

Aside from the slots this part could be made faster and more accurately in 3 axis. The finished part shows a lot of surface imperfections due to interpolation error; it seems Haas isn't that great at live 5 yet.

I've used GeForce cards many times in the past. As long as your models aren't very large and complicated they work fine. And when I say "very", I mean "very, very". Some people here (above) do work of that complexity, but it isn't that common. You'll be fine.

Inserted tools will not match the MRR of a solid carbide tool. And the tool body will likely cost more than the carbide cutter, increasing the cost of your operator's mistake. If you have probing you can idiot proof the setup by making sure the stock is where it needs to be, at the cost of a few seconds of probing per part.

I don't think it would be unreasonable to have a message for the most common error types like "No cut zone found."

Depends on what you're doing with it; some tasks it will use a handful of cores, but I would say that anything more than eight cores is a waste, and I would take four or six faster cores over eight slower ones. It mostly boils down to the algorithms; they need to be calculated sequentially, and there's nothing the programmer can do about it.

Haas machines come with Haas controls, not Accu-Rite controls. If you have a retrofit I'm afraid no one else is likely to have experience on the same machine, and you should contact Accu-Rite.

+++ to Machineguy. I had rusting issues here until I had a water deionizing system put in.

Sounds like a Boeing problem.

Have it but not using it. I'll poke around, thanks.

Trying this: G99 G83 Z3.3715 I.875 J.85 K.025 R5.2215 F.05 It's better, but still feeding slow into the hole. Might have to go longhand.

I have some .067" holes to drill 1.75" deep. I interpolated some .05" deep starting bores, then used a short cobalt drill to peck .875" deep. Now I want to use the long cobalt drill to peck the rest of the way, retracting above the stock with each peck and between holes, but not redrilling the first .875" of depth. What's the best way to do this? I tried this but it wants to start pecking at the top of the hole: T39 M06 (#51 .067 COBALT DRILL) T4 G59 G17 G90 G00 A0. B0. M88 G01 G94 X.0984 Y0. S1255 M03 F833. G43 H39 Z4.3465 G99 G83 Z3.3715 R5.2215 Q.025 F.05 Thanks

Sorry I'm late to the party. We do 6Al4V bone plates on the trunnion on the Haas. I've been using Helical and Harvey cutters with good results. Dynamic roughing with a 1/2" x 1.25" 7 flute .030" radius bull (27287) and Helical's recommended parameters i get five hours of tool life, in a shrink fit holder with 1000PSI TSC. I got some Kennametal Harvi 3's and some of Helical's new Ti specific cutters but haven't had a chance to try them yet, didn't want to change the proven process in production.