On 2/15/2024 at 4:01 PM, DC CNC said:

Thanks everyone. We are still working on a place to recycle chips.  

Maybe way out of left field, but how long is this long-run job? At 500 lbs/week (upper end of your estimate), that is 26,000 lbs of magnesium chips a year. Even if you're at the low end of your estimate, that is 13,000 lbs. just of swarf.

Have you considered a small onsite furnace to melt the chips and pour your own ingots? I know that may seem crazy on the surface, but it is chips and dust that are the fire hazard. Bulk magnesium does not burn unless heated above its melting point (1198F for pure magnesium). It is also suitable for transport once you've condensed it back into a solid. This may make it easier to find a recycler, or maybe even a metals supplier/foundry who would pay you for ingots to use as feedstock, since it would come already alloyed, and likely only require minor adjustments to the elements/ratios. The ingots could also be stored outside.

What about a racing wheel manufacturer like Litespeed or Dymag?

On 2/19/2024 at 3:06 PM, MIL-TFP-41 said:

One of the things I though about doing was collect a hefty bag full of the chips, then somehow hike up a mountain that overlooks our town, (its 2500 vertical ft up to the top) and light a campfire, dump the chips, and run. I imagine it would light up half the valley. Doing it at night in the snow would complicate the effort, but minimize the fire danger.

It would be a bitch of a hike in the summer during the day. Winter at night....gotta be more devoted to pyro than I am to do this.

When I was in my early 20's, maybe 23, I took a hike up to Rattlesnake Ridge, near the town of North Bend in Washington State. I brought along a woman I was dating and really liked was madly in love with. She was gorgeous and I wanted to impress her. I had a friend who was former EOD in the Air Force, and he made some spectacular fireworks. I took a very large, uh, let's say, "firecracker" with me on this hike. It is about a mile to the top of this ledge, about a thousand feet above rattlesnake lake, with the cascade mountains all around. Imagine the most beautiful scenery you've ever laid eyes on, and it was about ten times more beautiful than that.

So I waited until there were no other hikers around at the top of this ridge, maybe 30-40 minutes until the coast was clear. I (very carefully) lit the fuse and waited until the wick was uncomfortably short, and chucked this thing off the edge, but behind the ledge, where the view is obscured and close to the 'mountain wall' behind the ledge, because this was likely the safest place to perform this stunt. The initial boom was loud, very loud. Let's call it unreasonably loud and very impressive for me, and my date. What I did not expect was the sound after the initial boom. We stood in awe as the wave front of the boom propagated along the walls of the valley. The mountains on either side reflected some of the sound back to us on the ledge, so we could hear the boom as it both travelled away from us, and echoed its passage back to us. The sound swept up the valley and continued for at least 20-30 seconds, the roar gradually fading into silence. We shared a private moment, and passed a bunch of sheriff deputies heading up the trail when we were almost to the parking lot.

Was it foolhardy, dangerous, and illegal? Yes. It was also a magical adventure and a memory I'll treasure forever.

I think a Mag. fire on a mountain in winter might also be a magical experience, provided you take the right precautions, and accept the risk & accountability which accompanies such an endeavor. Lighting the fire and "running", I wouldn't recommend. Stand in the shadows and slip away into the night instead after admiring the fruits of your labor.

8 hours ago, cncappsjames said:

Bored machinists on night shift and magnesium. Sounds terrible. What's the address? Asking for a friend. 

Kirkland, WA. Big Okuma shop. Tier-1 Boing Subcontractor for many years...

If you know it, please don't say it. Lol.

Let's just say, it can be very easy to underestimate the amount of Mag. chips in a 55-gallon drum. Ours was maybe 20% full. Maybe. And that was good for 20 minutes of burn. Good thing the ignition was determined to be accidental, from an untrained employee putting hot chips in the wrong barrel... 

20 hours ago, gcode said:

Just take them out back and light them up!

They'll be gone in no time .

If you do this > you'll want to alert the Fire Department beforehand, and DO NOT do this at night. Ask me how I know. Something, something, 2nd shift, something, something, bored machinists, I think you get the picture.

And, I would not do this in California, Massachusetts, and/or any states with strict environmental protection laws, because if the wrong agencies catch wind (maybe literally, lol), that could be bad.

Also, if you should happen to be playing around, and lighting Ti or Mag chips on fire, the light is as bright as a welding arc. Save your sight! Don't look unless you've got the proper welding glasses/shield to protect your eyes. And again, doing this at night will absolutely alert the entire neighborhood to a bright white fiery light source, and this will attract all the wrong attention. 

One of the great things about the Halocarbon MWF is the performance in improving surface finish. Improvements of 200-500% are possible in Tungsten, Tantalum and Niobium. I've heard serious boosts in tool life for Ti and Inco 718 as well.

If you machine refractory metals, or Mag, Ti, Inconel, etc., I'd recommend looking into these guys. Their Metal Working Fluid (oil) has shown great performance in some very difficult materials for our government customers. I have no commercial affiliation or business interests with these guys, Phillips does not represent them or warranty their products, and these statements are my own. I just like their products and have heard good things from some guys I trust. But if you do call, tell Dave I gave you his contact!

https://halocarbon.com/

Dave Antonuccio  |  Business Development Director

Mobile:   (828) 384-6541

5 minutes ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

Yeah, apparently he hasn't improved himself at all in the past 4 years:

Ah well, I hope someone learned something for this thread

I would posit that he hasn't learned a thing since joining...

31 minutes ago, Jake L said:

Show up and take a shot at one of the most knowledgeable guys on this forum... doesn't seem like the smartest move to me 

Beat me to it...

7 minutes ago, JParis said:

It's a spammer.....already reported 

 

Notice the links hidden in the ___

 

Oh, that burns! Lol.

Thanks JP!!!

On 1/30/2024 at 2:29 PM, oppocreaty said:

I did some experimentation with the Defaults File. Looks like you can save a "Default Tool" to an operation, but not a "Default Tool Assembly". 

This was my discovery as well.

On 1/24/2024 at 8:24 AM, gms1 said:

I don't think I could do this any other way. I use offsets g54 thru g54.1p300 with up to 16 or 17 workplanes in a single program. I would never let mastercam auto assign planes because the amount of changes I make to programs hourly would shift and jockey work offsets out of order all the time.

Exactly.

The whole "auto-increment the work offset" function was created and intended for Horizontal work. It allows you to program Front > Right > Back > Left planes, and get B0 G54, B90 G55, B180 G56, and B270 G57 > automagically. But this behavior does a terrible job at "advanced horizontal programming", where you may be cutting at B0, but on the left or right part, held on the B90 or B270 face, where you want a separate work offset, so you can make adjustments to each part/feature independently.

Start over?

Not to sound glib, but Mastercam V8 was last supported before the turn of the century, running on Windows 95, or XP, or maybe Windows 2000.

To have any shot at a real answer, I'd suggest proving our community with more information about the problem.

Yep, the "Taper" is the primary attachment point to the machine, hence it is the Primary Holder. Everything between the primary holder and the tool is just another adapter/attachment.

This would also apply for a "stackup", such as the Capto system, where you can mount additional extensions/adapters between the primary holder and the tool component.

I was able to use the Operations file (not Operation Defaults) to assign Tool Assemblies. This does create more work in your workflow though, as you now must "import" an Operation, instead of just clicking on a new Operation.

I did some experimentation with the Defaults File. Looks like you can save a "Default Tool" to an operation, but not a "Default Tool Assembly".

I went through and replaced the Machine Definition and Tool Library inside the Defaults File, which will cause any "new Operation" you create to use the default tool assigned, but it will just grab the "Default Holder", which you can't really change.

I don't think this is a "bug" per se, but just an enhancement which needs to be made where if a Tool Assembly is assigned to a Default Operation Type in the Defaults File, that it actually pulls the Tool Assembly, not just the default tool.

Just to confirm > it isn't you!

On 12/29/2023 at 3:28 PM, Aaron Eberhard said:

Hell yeah I'm in I've been meeting to reach out and grab some lunch with you anyway, this would be fun.  Keep me in the loop.

 

Sweet! Looking at February 3rd, at my place. Start around 9:30-10:00 AM, I'm hosting lunch (we'll break around 12:30 PM), and we'll wrap around 3:00-4:00 PM, based on how everyone is feeling. Of course, everyone is welcome to attend as much, or as little, as they wish.

I've also decided to do a limited Teams Meeting for those who are outside the New England area. First Come, First Served, for those who wish to join. I'm somewhat limiting attendance to no more than 10-15 people. My main intent in hosting was to meet more actual flesh-and-blood people, and not just host an online meeting, but I also don't want to let distance be a barrier to learning.

On 1/3/2024 at 12:42 PM, Jake L said:

Huge thanks for the invite Colin, really wish I could make it, but I'm in the same boat as JP, minus the wife part. My GF goes back to college in two weeks and we're going on a small vaca to Texas next week so my next couple weekends are already full. 

I'd absolutely watch a video of the discussion tho, sounds like you're pulling together a bunch of very talented, very experienced guys.

Date changed to Saturday, February 3rd... Not sure if that changes anything? Either way, you're welcome to join or just watch the videos when you can.

I completely understand @JParis! Much of my home life is dedicated to taking care of my wife as well. I missed your post as well about working with Dave on this issue. It sounds like one of the big "missing pieces" is the ability to pass strings as parameters along with the operations, and perhaps only having 10 misc. integers and decimals as well. That said, I've done some unique things with Manual Entry toolpaths, using 'strstr' function to pass "intent" for the data and use this as a form of "flow control" within the Post. That, coupled with the new 'opinfo' function, gives us some very cool tools to play with. I can read forwards or backwards with opinfo in some unique ways. Truthfully, I don't even mess with Mastercam Posts much these days anymore. I'm getting rusty. That's why I want to do some of these Mastercam meetup sessions before I forget it all. Lol.

On 12/29/2023 at 4:00 PM, Kyle F said:

@Colin Gilchrist Any chance you're planning on filming that for personal use or Youtube?  I'm sure 90% would go over my head but I would be super grateful to be a fly on the wall for that discussion.

Will certainly record whatever we do and post it to YouTube afterwards. Trying to do "YouTube Live" takes a lot of production, but we may end up doing a Teams meeting invite, and just recording that. Teams is a bit easier to manage than a broadcast stream.

@Jake L, you're welcome to join as well!

On 12/27/2023 at 4:31 PM, mattgray_92 said:

Been using Mastercam 2020 for years now with no hiccup until recently.  Last week I noticed it starting acting funny and would pop up the message of "the parameter is incorrect" when attempting to regen a toolpath.  When opening the same exact file in a newer Mastercam, it regens it with no problem.  Today i did a clean uninstall of Mastercam 2020 and re installed it.  It was working fine until just now where it started acting dumb again with the same message.  Once that message pops up and i exit out of it, Mastercam pops up another message of "You cannot close the application while a task is active: Mastercam::OMregenDirtyOperations"  

I could just move onto a newer Mastercam, but our machines run fine with the 2020 Version and every time we upgrade and make a new program something is always out of wack and could potentially harm the machines.  I have emailed Mastercam Tech Support but have not heard anything back from them yet.  Also this is happening on multiple different files, not just 1.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you!

"every time we upgrade and make a new program something is always out of whack and could potentially harm the machines".

Could it be this > you haven't set the Control Definition Defaults properly, so the Control Definition Settings change, every time you update Mastercam?

I wrote a whole thread about this. It is 'stickied' at the top of the Forum.

Do yourself a favor (when you have time) and read through that thread. I think you'll learn how to setup your Mastercam, so an upgrade can be done flawlessly, in about 5-minutes, not including the install time.

When I upgrade Mastercam, I run the Migration Wizard, and I'm done. No fuss, no muss, no changing Control Definition Settings. My Mastercam 2024 outputs the exact same NC code as all the previous versions, after a fresh install/upgrade.

22 hours ago, JParis said:

I do a lot of hand work to my programs after I post them...one of the things I do is add notes in the Tool Comments as to which subprogram/subprograms are called for that tool change. It helps them narrow down where to look

 

N1550
G20
G0G17G40G49G80G90
G0G28G91Z0.
M00
(3/8 3FL ENDMILL TOOL - 11010375 DIA. OFF. - 51999 LEN. - 51999 TOOL DIA. - .375)
(3/8 ENDMILL / ROUGH TOP OF STOCK / Z+.01)
(MAX Z DEPTH - Z1.)
(MIN Z DEPTH - Z-.39)
(OPERATION #1)
(SUBPROGRAM N40001)
(SUBPROGRAM N40003)
(SUBPROGRAM N40005)
N1000
T11010375M6
T12010250
G90G10L10P#51999R0
G90G10L12P#51999R0
S18000M3
M8
()
IF[#925EQ1]GOTO10101
IF[#900EQ1]GOTO10101
IF[#900EQ0]GOTO30101
N10101
()
G0G90B90.
G0G90G54.1P1X.5718Y-1.5515
G43H#51999Z1.
M98H40001
(3/8 ENDMILL / ROUGH TOP OF STOCK / Z+.01)
(OPERATION #1)
N1002
G0G90Z12.
()
IF[#925EQ1]GOTO10105

Hey John,

I'm planning a Mastercam Meetup at my house in Connecticut. Not sure if that would be too far of a drive to be of interest, but I'll extend the invitation if you'd like to come. I'd be curious to see if we could engineer a process using Manual Entry Paths, to input the hand-edited data you're adding to your NC Programs, directly from Mastercam. Where there is a will, there is a way! I've done some crazy things to develop solutions for Mastercam Posts before, so if you're up for the challenge, I'd love to help solve this for you. We could always do this over Teams, since I would bet you live 2+ hours from me in East Hartford, and that is a lot of driving for one day.

So far, I've got three other guys who all happen to live in Connecticut or reasonably close, who would be joining me.

We are looking at a Saturday, possibly the 6th or the 13th, to host this event at my place.

@Aaron Eberhard, if you've got any interest in this, you're welcome to join us as well. Nothing fancy, just a bunch of guys with laptops and possibly a larger screen, hanging out and learning about Posts and/or toolpath techniques.

On 12/24/2023 at 2:22 AM, Zoffen said:

As a small operation I am always looking at ways to increase throughput and grow the shop $$$ wise without adding labor.

At first 3D printing seems like a no-brainer. Hit print. Profit. Retire.

But in reality there still seems like alot of logistical labor intensive things such as harvesting said parts, removing supports, post process, package, etc just like with any other manufactured good. I see guys with print farms on youtube and I always wonder how much money do they actually make 3D printing parts plastic widgets?

It appears the tech now is so widely available that to get any kinda of value-add you need to get into higher end processes with materials that an average print farm can't do.

So now you get into the higher end machines, with higher costs and still have the post processing issues as before, but now instead of removing support material with pliers you need a wire edm. Oh and don't forget the PPE requirements go up as well. You spend more money to then spend more money. Oh and don't forget the 100's of hours of failed prints dialing in everything!

So where's the money at to support all of this?

Is high end additive stuff only for exotic oem or is there any way that a small jobshop could add this to their capabilities realistically?

I see some value add in quick turn R&D with it added to a 5 axis cell and a small team you could easily iterate through design phases and scale to production very efficiently.

 

Anyone care to share their sage additive knowledge. I just want to hit print and take nap.

This is like saying you "just want to load up the pallet pool with material, and take a nap". Can it be done, absolutely! But there is no getting around all the investment in time and labor required to get to the point where you can just "print money".

There is no cheap/free lunch in manufacturing. Metal Powder is expensive. So is the engineering required to get from idea to printed part, let alone all the way through "finished and delivered part to the customer".

What competitive advantage can you apply, consistently, to make the 3D Printing process profitable in metal or plastic? I have yet to see a "job shop" enter the world of 3D printing (especially metal), and be instantaneously successful. You've got to find customers who are willing to pay for a technology to produce parts which "can't be made through traditional manufacturing technologies" (think engineered geometry like 'ntopology'), where the goal is to create periodic repeating geometric structures, for either "light weighting" purposes (lattice or generative design), or to find more efficient methods of heat transfer (like gyroid or diamond TMPS - triply periodic minimal surface).

Most of the 3D Printed Metal Parts I've seen still require some sort of post-process step. Heat Treating or hot isostatic pressing (HIP) treatments help change the density and porosity characteristics of the part. Many 3D printed metal parts still require traditional post-process machining steps (flanges, O-ring grooves, bores, seals, ports, etc.) to make a finished component, ready to be installed on a product or assembly.

One of the biggest hurdles to overcome are the materials and testing standards, and inspection processes, to qualify parts for any process which is safety critical.

Phillips has sold additive machines since 2000, and distributes for Markforged, EOS, and AML3D. We also build our own Phillips Hybrid machine, by integrating Meltio DED Print Heads onto Haas machines. These print heads feed a commercial welding wire down through the center of the nozzle, and hit the wire with 6 lasers (1,200 watts, 200 each) to form the melt pool. Our machines are an affordable entry point for additive, both new build and component repair processes, but you still need to make the business case for parts to be printed (to make the raw pre-form), and then finished machined. We also sell a standalone Meltio M450 machine, which only prints, but this way you and have one machine printing, while the CNC just handles the machining duties.

If you'd like to talk one-on-one, I can share more information and details which I wouldn't want to publicly disclose. For example, Phillips is building and running the Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence for the US Navy, in Danville VA, for 3D printing additive parts for the Columbia-class Submarine.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fastechengineering_usnavy-dod-usmanufacturing-activity-7118217521836486658-mO7H?

t$ = t$ + 10000

tloffno$ = 1

tllngno$ = 1 

I would recommend forcing the tolerance in Mastercam to 8 decimal places for Inch. You always want the "input" data to be more accurate and granular than the output data. Keep in mind > more precise tolerances require more mathematical calculations and time to process.

What is the 'least increment input' for the machine? Will you be running in Inch or Metric? Often, with Japanese machines (and most machines in general), you'll be able to hold tighter tolerances in Metric mode.

Keep in mind > your NC Code is an approximation of a path to follow. Translation of complex curved shapes into point-to-point, or line/arc motion, is always an approximation of a complex shape.

Is your machine's control capable of NURBS Interpolation (G06)? This would be the best and most accurate form of curve control at the machine, but good-luck supporting that output in Mastercam. The "NCI Data Format" (Mastercam's Raw Toolpath) is not capable of feeding "NURBS Curve Data" into the Post. Every Toolpath will linearize the input curve, and the output will be point-to-point motion. Trying to take those point-to-point moves and then derive an accurate NURBS curve output from that input, is a recipe for failure. There may be some advanced tools in MP where you could literally capture the starting NCI Block where the curve starts, and then scan forward through the blocks to determine the end of the curve, but there is a whole lot of math involved in just capturing the start/end blocks of the curve, let alone using that input to generate accurate NURBS output.

Could you do this with Point-to-Point, using Mastercam? Sure. Will it be accurate enough to give you what you need? Only one way to find out!

There are other CAM software packages with a deeper bench of engineering tools that may better support what you are trying to accomplish specifically for machining optics.

The "rounding issue" that Aaron is referring to, has to do with how Floating Point numbers are stored in your computer (and how the windows kernel reads and writes values. For example, if your input is "4.5", that number is likely stored as a very close approximation: 4.499999999999 (or similar). It is through Rounding, that we are seeing nice, round, numbers.

There is a Command Variable in the Mastercam Post: 'round_opt$', which "changes the internal windows library which fetches the data, and performs the rounding.

The 'round_opt$' variable is only needed in cases where you notice "bouncing" of the final digit of a rounded value.

(For example, a Z value that bounces from Z-.6605 to -.6604, where only that 4th decimal place digit is bouncing between 4/5, or 5/6.) This could be a result of an input value of 0.660455, for example.)

The round_opt$ variable can fix these instabilities in floating point conversions to rounded values.

'round_opt$' only has a couple of valid values, I recommend trying them all! NOTE: you should only initialize this variable near the top of the Post, and only one time. (Set the value, Post your code, examine the output, change the initialization value, save the Post again, and re-test the output. Do this for each of the following values.)

round_opt$ : 1

round_opt$ : 10

round_opt$ : 11

round_opt$ : 21