+1 If you need to do data collection of some kind, like probing results. I would use an old laptop. I would write my own utility in .NET to collect the data from the port and auto time/date stamp as it appends to the output file.

That's what I was thinking. To tie up a furnace for three months for batch of material is very costly. What end use would justify that kind of cost. I am very curious now.

Tsugami M08SY is priced to compete. We just got one in our showroom but have not had time to set up yet.

I just want to add a few comments here. Experience is a huge factor for building and installing large machines. Most builders ship 20-30 large double column machines per year. Okuma builds and ship almost 30 per month. In my time at an Okuma distributor we have sold a few double column machines and we have lost a few sales to competitors. Because of the volumes of Okumas that are shipped they have a full assembly and testing process before the machine leaves the factory. There is no custom fitting in the field. They also have dedicated install teams that can install these machines in 3-4 weeks. The few sales we lost to competitors all took months to install and get running. Just something to consider when purchasing a large volume machine.

As Ben says, because large tool requires empty pots on either side so you cannot change tool/magazine attributes from the NC code. There are read only variables that specify the tool/magazine attributes, but I don't really see value in being able to check if a tool is set to large tool since it requires the pots next to it to be empty. I can see where being able to check for heavy tool attribute could be handy.

I have not had much experience with the 710 Fanuc machine. I have worked a bit on the 1000 size with a Fanuc OiMD. Personally I would rather have an Okuma or Mits controller, but for the right purposes the Fanuc OiMD is fine.

Was Hardinge quote on the V1000 or V480 or other? The V series are nice machines. The Mits controller comes loaded with all the high speed goodies, etc. If you told him you were shopping Robodrill and other smaller size machine he may have been concerned the Okuma was out of the price range you were looking for.

Okuma M460VE is about 8' * 9.5' for the machine. If you get a chip conveyor versus chip pan, it takes the 8' wide to about 9.5'. 15K spindle, 30HP. Very fast and accurate.

In the past in harder materials requiring very little wall taper I have run a spring pass or very light finish pass in conventional cut direction.

I have found the numbers from Helical tool's milling advisor are usually pretty good. For 60Rc material with good work holding and tooling it recommends; 431 SFM 3292 RPM .0041 IPT .035 stepover It seems to me that your feed may be kind of light and you may be overheating the tool. However, I am a novice when it comes to hard milling, I do not do it that often.

I have started a simple post for Okuma Turn cut from a basic 2 axis Okuma lathe post. I stripped out all of the extra not needed BS. I use a manual entry for all of the prepatory start and finish commands and just program the lathe turning paths in between. Then I post as a SSB program and call that from my main mill program. The post still needs some work but it relatively close. I do not work on Turn-cut enabled machines very often so it is not a priority. If I ran one every day I would probably finish the post. We have one customer that has Turn-Cut on one of three machines on a Fastems cell. They do different operations in different machines. In the Turn-cut machine they finish using Turn-cut and probe results. They even have logic set up to re-cut undersize parts.

I'm not sure about regular expressions. In a two channel Okuma the waits are just simple P counts. I have not even asked if they have a three channel Okuma yet. Those use different sync commands. As far as documentation they are definitely keeping the .machine stuff under lock and key. That is my big complaint with Esprit as well. If as a customer I pay big bucks for a software and post/machine def I want to be able to edit and customize it as I need to. Yeah the markers lining up would be nice for viewing. i will suggest it. The big enhancement I asked for was the ability to add sync points to manual entry tool paths. We have a lot of variable checks, etc. that we like to use manual entry tool paths for and being able to sync them would help.

I am pretty deep into a big project using Mastercam MT for lower turret, b axis upper head, twin spindle machine. So far I have been able to get most of what I need out of Code editor syncing. I have been working with CNC and some of the enhancements I have been asking for are slated for development in the future. That will definitely help.

1. Create an .SSB file called OROT.SSB 2. Copy the code from above into the SSB file, save in MD1 3. In the code there are two variables that need to be set with actual machine positions from your machine. This is a one time setting. These are XMPS and ZMPS. These should be calculated as the center of the rotation of the table. 4. When you want to calculate the position of a work coordinate after you rotate the B axis, you call this from your main program; CALL OROT PW=*** PH=*** PB=*** PW should be the work offset number you want to use as the base number for calculations. PH is the new work offset number it updates with the new calculated coordinates. PB is the amount (+/-180 degrees) that you want to calculate for b axis rotation.

We have a customer running an M560 with a Koma 3+2 table. They like it and have very little issues. I know it is one of the smaller Koma models as the Z height on a standard M560 does not lend well to a tall rotary. You can however get an M560 with a 200mm column riser if you want a bigger trunnion style 3+2. I would suggest staying with Koma or Nikken as they have the most interfaces for Okumas. I prefer Koma if I am choosing.

I work for an Okuma distributor so my opinion is slightly biased. That being said I prefer Okuma because of the control, however Makino would be my second choice for sure. Beyond that I if I didn't need any fancy control stuff and just wanted a good workhorse of a horizontal I would consider OKK. Working for a distributor I get into a lot of shops and hear a lot of people's opinions. Makino's are are almost always spoken highly of.

Unless I need an extension for extra reach I like a 3mm ball, 50mm stainless shaft Renishaw stylus.

Well, I can say that is not a surprise. For users of older Okuma, the P300 has a lot of functionality that forces you to do things differently. The latest iteration of P300 software does allow you do define tool shapes from the turret page without having to do the easy modelling. We just starting seeing machines show up in the past month or two with that addition. That should help the older users feel more like what they are used to.

What specifically do you not like about the P300? Most of it can be turned off to make it like a P200.

Chris, I do not have experience with the Equator but I can say that for any gauging feedback to the machine tool I would highly recommend AutoComp from Caron engineering. It runs directly on the Okuma control and gives a lot of control over ,trends, sampling size, etc, for offset updating.

maintenance be necessary! Do you cancel to proceed?

I don't need any fancy holder to bend a drill. Just add a little x to your z move and your set.

Technically, the skip signal in a machine control is just a dumb signal, it does not care what brand of probe is in the machine. They all wire into the same inputs (Fanuc X004.7). You can use anyones macros for any probe as long as the calibration data is in the right variables. Like wise each different probe manufacturer may put some different logical checks in their macros to see if it is their probe. Okuma's gauging software doesn't care which probe brand is in the machine. As long as it turns on correctly, is calibrated correctly, and see the skip signal trigger it will work. That being said, it would require a bit of testing to ensure this would work. To the original post; At the end of the day the best result is almost always to buy from someone else that has already done the testing (no need to re-create the wheel). If you are looking to buy the Renishaw add-on to Mastercam you could add a Renishaw probe to your machine with the purchase justification. If you plan for a 10 year machine life running 80hrs per week, the cost of changing probes is probably only $.25 per machine hour. If the added functionality of having the Renishaw probing in Mastercam will save you time it may be worth the cost.

If I need a solution for full machining, including multitasking and Swiss, I would go with Esprit or Partmaker. If the shop purchasing has high level programmers that are good with post mods I would say Partmaker as their post edit utilities are great. If the shop does not have that level of programmers and wants better MTB certified posts I would go with Esprit. If the shop in question does not do Swiss or Multi-tasking I would consider Mastercam, especially if the shop does a bit of 5 axis. Note; I also want to specifically say that the distributor in the story I mentioned in the previous post is not the local Mcam guys. The local Mcam guys here, Protoek, have been good to us.

A full seat of Esprit is not cheap, but it can program every machine in your shop. Mills, 5X, Lathes, Multitasking, Swiss, Wire, etc. We sell Okuma, Tsugami, and Hardinge machines. I know with Esprit we can program and simulate every one of them. Here is the bottom line, as a distributor we get free seats of just about every software. We are in and out of shops that have every software out there. We see a lot of Mcam shops, a lot of Gibbs shops, some Esprit shops, some Surfcam shops, Partmaker, Featurecam, Edgecam, and more. I can say that the most complaints come from the shops that have to work with software distributors. The software makers that are direct have the least complaints and the best support. Likewise I can say the time/cost of getting a new machine/post up and running is the fastest with Esprit. You are getting a post from a corporate guy that works directly with the MTB. Others are getting a post from a distributor who buys it from another distributor/post maker or corporate who may or may not work with the MTB. For some out there post revisions are a revenue source. I'm not going to call out any specific brand but there is one distributor here in our area that always gives a generic post and makes the customer provide samples of what they want it to look like. We can sell a machine to a shop that is the exact same config as a different shop bought 6 months prior. We will tell the customer to ask their CAM distributor for the same post that we helped the last customer get dialed in. The distributor says that's not possible and send them a generic post. It may not be the same in all geographic areas of the country but that is what I see here. FWIW, If it was my money based on the experience I have had working with all of these different CAM vendors/distributors, there are only a few choices I would even consider.