We are working on material and tool libraries so we can start calculating our feed rates from the material. We found that if you calculate the speeds and feeds the plunge and retract feeds always calculate at 50% of the X-Y feed rate. This company programs the Z feeds the same as the X-Y feeds and does not want to change that. Does anyone know what to change so all 3 feed rates are the same when they are recalculated? Thanks in advance. Walt

The True Zero does not tip the tool. It is a 2 piece design and the 2 ground faces bolt together. The 4 set screws push on the pilot portion of the shank and slide the nose piece from side to side to put the tool on center. It took a little experience to learn how much to snug the bolts before adjusting and if you over tightened them it can influence the concentricity. Once you get a feel for it they actually work well. I think this is it patent drawing

Have you used the Hydralock? It is hard to tell from the drawing but it seems the three set screws actually pivot the holder nose from the spindle axis. If that is the way it works I am not sure I like that method. Crazy – I tried the command site already and did not see them. I seem to remember they where made by a small company and marketed thru Command. I think they may have had a falling out and went there separate ways. Chris – Have you used the Bulls-Eye? It seems like the most promising so far. I think a collar rotates around to put the screw at the high point. Does any body else remember the True Zero holders or know of any other similar products?

A few years ago I purchased some tool holders that went by the True Zero name. The shank that fit in the machine spindle had a short protrusion and 4 taped holes in the face. The nose piece bolted to the shank and had 4 set screws bearing on the shank. This allows adjustment of the concentricity of the tool. I believe they may have been associated with Command at one time but I am not certain. I have been trying to find these holders but am not having any luck. Does anybody know about these holders? If they are still out there I would like to find the current manufacturer. Thanks Walt

In my experience the use of CL rotation does not allow individual adjustment of each index. Every company I have been involved with that does this (and that includes the company above, I worked there) wants to use only one WPC for all indexes. I do not agree with that method but that is the way management has wanted it done. That normaly works great on a new machine but after a few years is when the problems start to show up. If you used CL but a different WPC for each index you would still be able to make individual adjustments.

quote: If you "don't do modular" (I'm assuming because of cost) Its probably because it management is not the ones that thought of it. NIH.

We program part zero here. I have done it both ways and much prefer part zero and a work coordinate for each index. The place I worked before moving up here used to program CL of rotation and my boss had written a macro to shift the wpc on the machine at every index to track the shift placed in a macro variable. An X shift became a Z at B90 and did the trig for other angles. It worked beautifully when the machines where both dialed in perfect.but abandoned that because if the machines where not perfect they where always chasing the zero and compromising between conflicting shifts on different faces, might need X+.0015 at B0 but Z+.0005 at B90 so you would use .0007. When I interviewed for my current job they asked me how I set zero in Mastercam and when I told them it was at CL of rotation they looked at me like I was nuts. I had to clarify that I only did it like that because my then employer wanted it done that way. There was one guy working there that used to get PO'd because he would have to shift a part couple of thousandths and repost to change machines when he had just shifted the the other way a couple of days before. Walt

Thanks a lot. I never noticed that before. I still don't know what I did but I can fix it now. Walt

I have one file that the WCS origin is yellow. All my other files it is green. I do not know how I did it or how to change it. Does any body know? I started by opening a Parasolid that came from Solidworks like I always do. I know this is not an end of the world problem but you get used to seeing something a certain way and anything else just bugs you. Thanks Walt

Bruce The problem is if you drill 2 inches deep with one drill then come back with a longer drill and drill 6 inches deep the second drill will have to drill 2 inches of hole that has already been drilled in order to get a retract out of the hole. Shawn I had to drill a .250 hole 7.85 deep so I wrote a macro for a custom peck cycle and assigned G183 to it. I then drilled 2.5 deep with a thru coolant drill and then used the long drill to go the rest of the way with the custom cycle. It works exactly like a G83 except R is the retract point, W is the feed point ( new R for this tool ) and E is the feed rate from R down to into the hole. I always set up my macros to cover for missing parameters so if you leave out the E it will default to 100. IPM, and if you leave out the W it will act like G83. It could also be set up to rapid if no W is passed. I assume this will also work on a HAAS. We have 3 of them here but I am kept busy with the Makino A51 cell so I do not deal with them myself. Walt

Mazak will do this with H as the block number to go to in the sub. M98 P1000 H9999 Fanuc will not do it. My solution was to use G65 instead of M98 and pass the line number as H. O0001 (MAIN) G65 P1000 H9999 ; M30 O1000 (SUB) GOTO #11 ; N9999 ; M99 You can do multiple sub calls to run different portions of the sub this way. O0001 (MAIN) G65 P1000 H10 ; G65 P1000 H20 ; G65 P1000 H30 ; G65 P1000 H40 ; M30 O1000 (SUB) GOTO #11 ; N10 ; GOTO9999 ; N20 ; GOTO9999 ; N30 ; GOTO9999 ; N40 ; GOTO9999 ; N9999 M99

Predator is a good option for the money. I have used Predator for many years and have always had good results. Just be aware that customer service runs hot and cold. We are looking at Vericut here right now and it looks good. If I where spending my own money I would seriously consider Predator, but go in knowing that I may or may not get as much help as I should expect. If you want to email me I can give you some more info. Walt

It is not necessary to change the tool type to undefined. Just draw the tool and holder as one either on a separate level or as a separate file and use that for your geometry. I know this works, I just did 4 of them yesterday. Just a couple of details. Draw your geometry in the top plane as a continuous loop. The centerline is optional. Also if you use undefined draw it to scale but any predefined tool type you need to scale the geometry so the radius of the tool is 1 inch. This is very important to have the tool modeled the correct size. I prefer to save this as a separate file so I can use it again on other parts. Walt

If you do not like the order you can also manually sort them yourself. Just click on "Geometry" for your op in the op manager. This brings up "Drill Point Manager" you can then drag and drop points up and down in the list. Sometimes sort will get close then a few points can be moved manually to get what you want. This also works for chains in contour ops. Walt

I am not sure about the rpm, but at my last job we made housings out of 5 and 6 inch thick MIC6 plate. Our Toyoda horizontals only had 12000 and 14000 rpm but I was using Ford 3/4 and 1.0 carbide end mills with a short flute length and relieved shank 4 inches out of the holder at .025 to .030 per tooth and a maximum depth of cut of .400. The depth was adjusted to devide evenly into the total depth. If I had more rpm I think I could have used it. By the way these end mills cost over 300.00 and every company selling carbide said they had a better tool but none of them could match this. More than one salesman tucked his tail and left with a broken end mill. Walt