My biggest client is thinking of buying a machine or two, which I would be responsible for programming, setting up, and for longer running and repeating stuff training in an operator. Current parts for their product line are small medical device parts, Ti, stainless, PEEK, and on a few of them I'm making good use of the 50K RPM I have on the CM-1, halving cycle time over doing them on a 15K RPM machine. 95% 3 axis, 5% 4 axis. I'm also doing some small mold blocks, 3" x 3.5" x 1" thk, cavities requiring tools down to .010", and the outside of those blocks takes forever on the CM-1. I'd have a heck of a time doing cooling lines on it if later molds require them. I've advised him that I think another CM-1 (4 ax) for the tiny stuff plus a VF-2 or VM-2 (4/5 ax) for the bigger stuff would meet current needs well. A sinker would really help if we do many more molds. Our local Haas rep and HFO (Productivity) has been great, so I'm inclined to stick with them; they also rep Matsuura. He also wants to consider stepping up from Haas, so we're looking at Matsuura, Okuma, etc., and he'd like to have decent 5 ax capability so as to be able to take on fancier work in the future. I've heard not-so-good things about Haas' UMC line, but I was fairly pleased with the 2015 VF-3SS with a trunnion that I used for six years. My concern with putting all the money into a higher end machine is that we'd get less productivity vs two cheaper machines, plus it would have to be a jack-of-all-trades machine instead of two with different optimizations. What do you guys think we should be looking at? Thanks!

Maximum clock speed, overclocking, 64GB RAM. i9 is a good choice, much better than Xeon. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

If it will always be that, then what changes need propagating? You're not going to use the same feeds and speeds for every part and situation, so you don't want those updating. If they do, you'll be scratching your head wondering why a repeat part with a minor revision isn't working anymore.

Yup.

The $60 ones I got are all steel. I'm designing a 4th axis fixture to use the jaws and lead screws from six of them, in a common body with three on top and three on the bottom. At this price it's cheaper to buy the vises and throw the bodies away than to make new jaws and screws.

Haas just sent an ad for this, for $800: https://www.haascnc.com/haas-tooling/mill_workholding/vises/05-0013.html I got a bunch of these for $60 each, and they seem just as good as the Lang's I'm used to: https://www.robotdigg.com/product/1851/Self-centering-vise-electrode-fixture-Machining-Tool-8-55mm,-50-75mm

You can't teach someone who doesn't want to learn.

This was discussed several years ago. There would be some advantages, but also major gotchas. The way I use my tool library, I'll load the cutter from the library, and change the stickout and maybe the holder for a given part. I expressly do NOT want that to alter all the other files in which I've used that cutter. I also recalculate cutting parameters for most cuts, and very much do not want those changing without my say so.

The Stock Compare function in Stock Model will take care of that automatically. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVEE1gCTypQ

This can also damage your thrust bearings through fretting, if the reciprocal motion is smaller than the bearing spacing.

And don't forget to optimize your gap size distance; sometimes it's faster to retract and rapid than to backfeed, especially if it's going to the other side of the part.

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I use Optirough without stepups to program high feed cutters at 65% stepover. Works a treat.

Helical.

It seem with opening native SW files, your Mastercam has to be newer than the SW version they were saved from. So I always get Parasolids; it avoids countless problems.

This might be an obvious one, but I'm just getting going in moldmaking. I got a four cavity mold requiring cutters down to an extended reach .010" ball, and I'm giving it dynamic roughing paths. Trying to feed the toolpath the whole solid at once locked up my computer after a while, even with containment boundaries for one cavity at a time, so I made four separate sold model chunks, one for each cavity. Then they regenerated quick and easy.

When making those parts from gauge pins, for cutting to length I held them horizontally, zigzagged down with a 3mm high feed endmill, then sidemilled the end to finish.

I've made parts from gauge pins, when the OD was critical and the 52100 steel was appropriate. Just mill it with carbide.

Hmm, doesn't seem to be working for you. Maybe send that to your dealer.

It will be more stable if you keep it running nonstop, and if you can manage your HVAC situation. Probing each tool as you pick it up will also help. Don't rely on the Z of the spindle probe; that will move with your thermal growth. Here's another idea, kind of similar to Ron's. When I'm picking up the Z of the center of rotation of a trunnion, after getting it close, I'll tilt over 90°, cut a face, spin 180°, and cut the opposite face. Then I can mic between the faces to gauge my error, and adjust that out. You could automate that at the start of your part, and instead of micing, tilt back to 0° and probe in X. Then a simple macro can fine adjust your Z for every part.

I just turn it on and leave it on. What it does, is if you're doing a raster type path zigzagging back and forth, it will start the filtering from the same end of the path regardless of the direction of tool travel. That way entity endpoints line up better, and depending on your tolerance settings, high feed codes, and machine dynamics, it can produce a better surface finish. I've never seen any reason to have it turned off.

I ran a VF-3SS with a trunnion for six years. The Z would move about .0015" over the first couple hours of running in the morning, and that was in a +/- 2°F environment. 20° is a wild swing. Technically they do have thermal comp, but from what I hear it doesn't work very well. If you need better than that level of accuracy you'll have to control the temp tightly, program automated probe and adjust routines, or just program to automatically touch off every tool at it's picked up.

It all makes sense now...

Ok, are you doing a multi-fixture, with G55, G56, etc. being additional parts?

Are those multiple G54 planes at different orientations, or are they just duplicates?