With 13 Doosan mills in the shop, some with 20k+ hours and 6 Makinos I'll take the Makinos every time.

We've had great luck with the Imco Streaker aluminum cutters for finishing thin wall parts. Got 12 machines set up with tool libraries featuring them.

we have several Doosans,(4 DVC-400, DLS-4020, DHP-5000, DHP5100) but not that particular one. They've been good machines for our 99.5% aluminum shop, but the Makino A61 has made a believer out of me. No comparison on downtime and cycle time is less when the same programs are posted both ways.

1) A61 Makino (soon to be 2) 1) MA-400 Okuma 1) DHP-5000 Doosan 1) DHP-5100 Doosan 4) DVC-400 Doosan 1) MV 4020LS Doosan 1) Revo 6030 Doosan 2) PMC-10T24 Excel 1) PMC-14T24 Excel 1) VMC 3016 Fadal 1) VTC 30 Elite Kira 1) VM2 Herco Fully expect the list to grow in the next year

We've had good luck with the mold plus version.

We don't save any programs at the machine, period! Every time a job is setup, the G-code is downloaded from the working directory of the server. The operators have read only access. The programs are tied to the original customers engineering by sheet and rev level stamps as well as 1st article date in the header of the G-code file. The only way the programs get into the working directory is by posting from MasterCam into an Unproven directory, then when QA buys the part off the 1st article date is put into the header and it's transfered to the working directory by the programmers. That is, when we can get QA to fill out the database showing the date and machine they bought the part off. Got quite a few files waiting in the Unproven directory right now because of workload issues.

Mine goes blank for a few seconds, then comes back by itself.

Hey Reece, you want to come down and play with it this weekend? I'm heading to Texas for my son's wedding in the morning and Nick will be here by himself with several other parts in the lineup.

John, I'm not seeing the rotary axis positioning you're talking about. I'm on X3MR1. What drill cycle are you talking about? About the only way I see to do this right now is to build a seperate wcs for each hole. don't really want to do that but the machine is waiting!

gcode, what do you use in x? currently running x3mr1.

Thanks guys, I'll give it some more thought.

Won't let me load the other mmd, says it can't run the 5-ax drill operations. Changed the 0 deg position to z+ and it didn't help. Planes are set to top, front, front. Forgot to add, this is a mpmaster post, modified by Inhouse for our Makino A61

I've tried about every combination I can think of so far. If I change the view to anything other than top I get error messages when posting. I've always thought of view as rotational axis so leave it as top in all cases on this machine. I'm using a copy of the original front plane as tool and const. plane, but it doesn't work on the original front either. I can force output of rotation with a tool/const. plane change, is there anything in the post or MMD that would preclude use of hole vectors for rotation?

Hope someone can explain this to me. I've got a part on the front of a tombstone on a horizontal mill(A61), I set my planes as top,front,front(center of tombstone=center of rotation). The part is machined as needed in this front position, then moved to the top of the tombstone to drill a series of holes on a contoured wall. The 5 ax drill operation is set to 4 ax output, points/lines for geo. and original point for tip control. The planes are the same as before, staying with the original G54 offset(center of rotation, bottom of tombstone). Backplot shows fine, the tool orients to the vector line and drills where needed. Posting however doesn't come up with a B axis move to align to the hole vector(should be roughly B-100 deg.). I know it has to be in the planes, I'm just not finding the cause.

Not sure on which option, the sample code they sent me and the book shows a G187H1FxxxEyyyy with the F being max feed cap, E=tolerance. This machine was transferred in from a sister company to take the load off the A61. I don't know how old it might be, or how tight. They are installing it today. Hoping to cut tombstones Monday.

Nothing wrong with Okuma that I know of, we're an all Fanuc shop and the controls are different so that is why I was asking. Thanks for the code Beck, do you use the high speed look ahead? Was wondering how you went about spec'ing the E(tol) value.

We are getting a used (not my choice) Okuma MA-400 Horizontal with OSP-E100 control to move some work off the new Makino A61 we got this spring. I've been going through the book and a sample code file they sent me and getting the generic post tweaked with the dealers help. For those who've used one of these machines, is there anything to watch out for? Special tricks?

just found it, hadn't checked out the axis control under the 4 axis tab. Needed to be changed to y axis. When I switched to the laptop at home this afternoon, I didn't have the correct post and MD stored on this computer. When I switched to the correct MD I was able to change from Z axis to Y and things started working.

Sorry, didn't tell the whole story, outer wall is on a radius. B axis needs to rotate for each hole

Guys, late in the week I know, but I have a problem I can't seem to get around. Have a part sitting on top of the tombstone that needs a series of holes drilled in the perifery walls. The file originally had a point well outside the hole with a vector reaching to well inside the part wall. I worked with that with no luck, so I put my own point at the inside wall depth of the hole with a vector reaching to just outside the hole. Still no dice. I'm setting planes to top view(center of rotation), and C&T planes as front where I have an earlier operation of the same part. Trying to work with 5 ax drill operation, set to 4 axis, point/line, and tip control to either original point or surface. It allows me to pick only the point, but the help section reads like it will include the line as vector if it is connected to the point. I'm getting the drill to pass through the point, but never on the correct vector. Anyone see anything in this rambling post that rings a bell?

I've got the 1.25" Heli-Alu in the click-fit version on most of our machines.Works great, just ordered another 10 boxes of inserts! We had them build us some 2" long versions (original had 3.5" reach) and they now have it in the catalog as a special. With it and the 3/4 rougher I get most of my roughing done. The Heli-Alu also finishes walls on a few parts.

I rough a lot of pockets with a 3/4" solid carbide rougher from Iscar (ERCI-E-3), 12750rpm, 265ipm on 40 taper horizontals. Finish with IMCO Streakers. Haven't got around to loading X4 yet, but these tools have done a great job here. Have tried about everything else the various salesmen have thrown at us and for the cuts we make nobody has beaten them yet.

Thanks Ron, it was listed as force C axis home, but did the trick anyway

Guys, still on X3 (too busy to load X4). I've got a 4axis horizontal post that is outputting a B0 as it retracts to z0 at every tool change. I'd like it to stay at the current rotation till an operation needs a rotation change. Any one got an idea where to look? Thanks in advance.

I've about worn those buttons out setting that way, still doesn't stick. If I move to a different part on a different machine, then come back it's looking back to the hard drive for the tool library. Not sure why it won't stick?