Our shop just got a new Zoller Venturion presetter last week. I am currently working on getting the Zoller posts and the cumunications to all the machines up and going. I have a couple of questions about how to best implement it: 1) Our shop has aprox 20 CNC machines, the majority of them are 40 & 50 spindle taper machines. The length from gage line from machine to machine varies up to .030. I would like the tool lengths coming from the Zoller to be used on ALL of the machines and not have to make a Zoller post unique tool lengths for each machine. Also, many of our machines already have tool setters in them so it would be nice to have the #'s coming from the machines tool setter match the Zoller. 2) We have several machines with the Mazak Matrix control ( we are using the Mazatrol tool and Dia's offsets) I am having a hard time getting a Zoller post to work for them ( I had very little trouble with our FANUC based machines) .The Zoller came with 100's of post templates some of which were supposedly for the Mazak Matrix control none of which have worked for me. The Mazaks we have will output the Mazatrol tool info as a .DBD file so I am assuming that is the file type that I need the Zoller to output. Any advice would be helpfull especially the name and Zoller article number of the post you are using. I think the prestter we bought is an amazing machine, but I do think that getting in implemented across all of our machine is a much bigger job than I originally thought Thanks in advance for any help you all can give. -Daryl

Single blocking entire programs is just not an effecient way to prove out new programs. Either just just show them what the program is doing by using verify or get a demo version of Mastercam from your reseller and put on a computer on the floor. Give your operators a little training and they can run the part in verify and see what the program is doing themselves without having to single block it.

Horizontals please We were an all vertical shop until my employer bought 2 new Mazak 6800 horizontals this year. If the job is of any quanity at all they will run circles around any of our other vertical mills. Sure they can be a pain to set-up and they are sometimes (a little) more trouble to program but you can easily make the time up. Just think if could only have 1 mill in your shop (besides a 5axis) it would be a horizontal.

Well technicaly its not my cha ching it my employers. I think the tool was around $200. The tool crib has some varimills too. We have had nothing but good luck with Varimills in 17-4ph and 15-5ph stainless. We have used Fraisa tools mainly for cutting aluminiun with very good results. That 10 flutter is the tool the boss-man whats me to try so what can ya do.

Dowty, Why use ISO with that controler? We have a Hermle C40 with the same control and Hiedenhain conversational is the only why to go in my opinion. Also if you already have a good understanding of g-code it will only take a small amount of time to learn Heidenhain conversational as well.

I have never had much luck using Mitsubishi feedmills in the stainless steels we machine 17-4PH 15-5PH and 13-8. Cycle times are long becuase of the shallow depth of cut (.03-.04) and tool life is poor even with their stainless ST inserts. We have had much better luck using .750-1.00 dia Hanita Varimills to rough these materails. I have used them a few times in 4130 heat treated to about 40RC and they have worked better and faster. Even then I still think the Varimills win. Most of time our feedmills are ran on Hermle C40 with a HSK63 spindle with aprx 30HP

We have several, one of them one is a 20+ year old OKK 620 that is still running strong, We also have 2 newer VM5'S and a VM900. Our 900 and one of our VM5's has the 12000 RPM 50 taper spindle and I am a little disapointed with the spindle on them. With the 12k spindle you loose the low gear and it seems like it takes forever and a day for the spindle to speed all the way up and slow back down. It also makes them weak for cutting steel. If your shop runs mixed metals (like ours) the lower rpm 8k spindle is the way to go. A real big plus for OKK in my book is that the service from our area reseller has been top notch

Depends on your machine, we have some OKK's 2 VM5's and a VM900 with the Neomatic control. I got a bad finish once filting out surfacing op and I have not used it since. When running from the machines hard drive memory is nearly limitless anyway. I might turn the filter on to make the path verify or regen faster but I always turn it off before I post.

Our shop cuts aluminium with Clevland Twist Drills series 538 and 539 endmills. for roughing with a DOC at about 50% of the cutter dia I would run a sfm of 1000 and chip load of about .004 per tooth using this tool in an application that use described a rpm of 5600 and feed of 67 ipm would be no problem at all. Your feed could likley be mush faster than that since you are ramping and you doc would be likley be mush less 50% of your cutter dia. I agree with the others I would probably loose the drill and ramp the hole out.

My company just placed an order for a Mazak Nexus 6800-II Horizontal, travel is x 41.3"/35.43”/ 38.58” with a 10k spindle. Although I was not involved in the decision I looks like a awesome machine. Our shop has another horizontal a Large Femco (fanuc controller), that is a big piece of crap by the way. So I am thinking that there is little I will have to do to that post to convert it for use on the Mazak other than change the max spindle speed and feedrates but I am just wanting to make sure.

4 moonths ago my company bought a Hermle C40 along with a seat of Camplete. Although I think Camplete is a good product for machine verification, I am not very happy with the posting aspect of it. Camplete post are easy to create and edit yourself but they are still pretty generic and programs require to much hand editing for my taste. Plus they don't generate a toollist. I think it is time we started looking into getting a true Heidinhain post just wondering what every one else is posting out their Heidenhain programs with.

In October my employer bought a Hermle C40 with the Heidenhain ITNC530 control. The Hermle is a very nice machine with a large work area. Aprx 32" in x and y. Z axis has about 25" of travel with the table flat. The A axis travles are A-110 to A20. For me the best feature on it is that the spindle is very slender so your part only has to be about 4" off the table to machine 5 sides of it. Learning Heidenhain really is not that big of a deal and in some ways it is better than g-code.

Thanks pkzic thats what I was looking for

iTNC530.....

A new Hermle C40 will be at our shop in a couple of weeks. I am already programing my first ever 5 axis part and trying to learn the Camplete software that came with the machine. My problem is in my 10 years in the trade I have only ran and programed FANUC based machines was wondering if there are any on-line sources for info on Heidenhain. On Heidenhains web site I found some downloadable service manuals but they all seem to be for service personal only since the are password protected.

I got a roughing operaation where I need to remove a LOT of 4340 steel too cut a boss aprx 5.0 tall I am currently roughing it using 2 3.0 Kennatmetal KSOM ocatagon facemills one with a short tool holder and another with a longer one. and as expected the short facemill cuts good and the longer extended one cuts at a much slower feed rate and is hard on inserts. Our local Mitsubishi salesman is pushing the AJX series cavitymills according to his claims they can cut at very high feeds (.040" IPT) at short depth of cut (.04-.06") and can be used in extended reach apps. Does anybody recomend these cutters what do you guys use when you need to move a lot of steel? www.mitsubishicarbide.com/mmus/en/whatsnew/new002/ajx.htm#

We have been using Pm Plus series 538 and 539 end mills from Clevland Twist Drill They work great in Aluminuum http://www.cuttingtoolsupply.com/Cleveland...us/539/Home.htm

I just attended a Multiaxis training class at my local reseller yesterday. The class was taught by Karlo Apro from CNC software. Although it was a lot of infromation to pack into one day I found the class very helpfull. Also all of the lessons, practice parts and power point presentaion was all burned onto a disc and given to us at the end of the day. My employer just placed a PO for a Hermle C40 this will be our shops first 5 axis machine although I was not involved in the decision everything I have heard and read says that it is a high quality machine just wondering what everyone else's experience has been with Hermle.

Iam having a hard time editing tools so they display correctly in backplot and verify. Our tool library was converted from Mcam9 and one annoying bug in x is that holder diameter somehow becomes holder radius so with 2.0 in the holder diameter box displays a 4.0 dia holder. All of these tool display correctly in Mcam9. Alao in 9 although the holder height would display incorrectly it would display a tapered tool holder. How do you get X to do this? How do you draw a custom tool in X I never had real good luck doing this in Mcam9 but got it to work a few times. You should be able to draw a 2d outline of your tool and on a level in your program and link it to your tool but it does not seem to work.

The post that we use have been highly modified so I don't know if everyone does it this way or not but all of our post will post a MOO (program stop) when a manual entry is used and the "as comment" box is clicked Manually entries with the "as code" box clicked will post a M01 (as code) So just insert manual entries in between the toolpaths where you want the tool to stop. Ronm for several years before I started programing with Mastercam I programed Hurcos conversationly. I believe I am one of the few people who actually kinda liked programing and running Hurco's Everyone ones else who works with me doesn't like programing them.

Thanks for the tip Andrew that works great.

Usually only 1 file for program. Most of the parts we make can be machined machined complete in one operation. The exception would be weldments I have only been using x for a couple of weeks and still find it easier to just save the mcx file as something else and program the other operation.

I have recently cut the cord on v9.1 and have been using nothing but X MR1 for a couple of weeks now kinda and like it If anyone could help me solve these 3 problems with I would be a real haapy guy. 1) When using mask on arc in v9 you could set to have "filter out duplicates" box checked as a default it is frustrated and hard for me to remember to check the box every time. Also checking the box after the geometry is selected does not always seem to work resulting in having to manually delete points. Is there away to set yhis default in x?? 2) The default name for a posted .nc file in X is "machine group 1" is there a way change this to match the name of the master cam file? For example if the program is 7777.mcx the posted file would automaticly be 7777.nc without renaming it. 3) In the orginal release of X when backplotting cordinates were displayed at the bottom of the screen realtive to your current WCS this has been missing on my computer since I installed MR1 how do I turn this back on?

I attended the roll out installed it right away but became very frustrated with all the bugs in the original release. I set it aside and didn't mess with it again until the release of MR1. I have used nothing but X for the past 2 weeks. Although it was inexcuseable that the origial rolled of with so many bugs I kinda like X now and don't think I will be going back to 9.1

I am for Hurco my employer bought a Hurco VM2 about 6 months ago and it is a nice little CNC machine. We also have an older Hurco Hawk 40 (about 8 years old) that had also been suprising reliable. The Hurco conversational programing is very easy to learn and for simple parts is faster than programing it with Mastercam. Be sure yours comes with the "Indusrty Standard" NC option.