+1000 to the robodrill. Get the 10k spindle with BBT (face + taper dual contact) spindle + 21 tools. You will NOT be dissapointed. 1x happy customer for 18 months and counting...

Very wise words Ron. Dave, where I used to work, the owner would look over our shoulders at our quoting, and with a pen put a line through it and write HIS figure to be sumitted (usually at least 30% less than ours). He would then stand there and say 'I think we'll win it at that' and nod his head agreeing to himself. We used to argue and say the obvious (doesn't even cover consumables etc), and he used to get all firey thowing the ef's into us. In the end, when he used to say 'I think we'll win it at that', we used to say 'Yes, I think we will', and he used to go away with a smile on his face as he had beaten his engineering dept down and 'won' by getting them to agree with him. Regularly he used to kick the door open into the department shouting that 'this job is effing killing me because you lot are taking too long'. Not suprisingly he's gone bankrupt twice for $5.5 mil, and is wellllll on his way to make it a hatrick.

I think they're made in Taiwan for Hardinge by Quasar machinery

I couldn't agree more with you're opening paragraph. A couple of others:- Is there any special gauging requirements? Is there capacity (hours) available on the machine to make the job? Is the lead-time acceptable/do-able?

Oh come on guy's, give the operators a break. You're only going to create a bigger 'them and us' divide

It was the best afternoon we spent, ball barring 3x vmc's. With parameter tweaking we got rid of north/south/east/west quadrant marks, and tuned the machines to interpolate to <8microns of roundness. Now I know you matsuura boys will larf at that 'big tolerance', but we have value for money chevalier machines. It really has transformed them.

Thanks for the tip Colin. The colour changing thing may be a graphics card issue, unless it does it on everyones pc? As I said, it's way more stable than the older version, so I suppose there used to be a conflict for us somewhere?

Rick, Can't help you with your question but O/T... Your screen shot shows as white squares around your ops. Is it always like this with your pc? On our pc's when they turned white (which was usually after copying a lot of operations), mcam would usually freeze in X2/X4MU1. Now we have X4MU3 it's a lot better, but when it does this we save and quit out/back in just to be safe? Cheers

Well talking of fat fingers - I typed out the reply and the screen went blank and the message said wait 30 seconds and hit refresh so I did and it posted twice. I suppose it could have been 'computer thrombosis' ie a clot in front of the monitor but....

We have a customer whose foreman has exactly the same attitude. This is because he doesn't understand cam and hides behind the statement 'the old ways are the best'. Heck, they make aerospace parts and it isn't unusual to have 12 operations on a part (which would be 2x ops on a hori). A fixture/setup for every operation!!! Not that there's anything wrong with certain old ways, but more and more customers supply models and more and more supply dimensionless drawings. It is the way everyone is going because what is the point of the drafy taking a day to detail a drawing if you can prog from the model and check (cmm) from the model. Luddites. You just gotta love 'em! Oh, and how can he override QC? I wouldn't think he'd be around for very long with attitude like this?

We have a customer whose foreman has exactly the same attitude. This is because he doesn't understand cam and hides behind the statement 'the old ways are the best'. Heck, they make aerospace parts and it isn't unusual to have 12 operations on a part (which would be 2x ops on a hori). A fixture/setup for every operation!!! Not that there's anything wrong with certain old ways, but more and more customers supply models and more and more supply dimensionless drawings. It is the way everyone is going because what is the point of the drafy taking a day to detail a drawing if you can prog from the model and check (cmm) from the model. Luddites. You just gotta love 'em! Oh, and how can he override QC? I wouldn't think he'd be around for very long with attitude like this?

The trouble with Nylon is that it absorbs water (moisture) so can change quite dramatically. Acetal or Delrin will be better from a machining point of view. I'd ask the drafty boys if flatness is really an issue? If you use a vac fixture, both sides will be parallel to eachother, and as the plates are only 1/2" thick, they will 'bend' more than 5 thou quite easily on assy. What I mean is they will clamp flat very easily, clamping out any 'bend' within them, negating any drawing flatness requirement. Ask what the application is.

Thanks for all the replies. The lathe is maxed out at the moment, so I thought we'd use the mill. Thanks for all the suggestions. Cheers

Hi All, We got some mild steel (low carbon) billets to do. 7" dia with a shallow recess in (5" dia x 1/8" deep). Rather than bore the recess on the lathe, I wondered about milling it out (as there are also some PCD holes in the same face). So after having good results with peel milling and reading a bit about dynamic milling, I'm thinking of using either dynamic or spiral mill with a small stepover. I'm leaning towards spiral but can anyone advise on tools/stepover/speeds and feeds please? Cheers

Woohoo - Credit from James!!! FWIW, the legacy ops open immediately whereas the new style are about a second now. The new styles were about 4 seconds previously. So anyone having problems (and there are quite a few threads here) perhaps should check their PC. Cheers

Hi All, One of the PC's was running slow at work yesterday, and the fan was whiring a little. I pulled off the covers and airlined out the crud, and noticed that the processor fan was loose. I dropped in a new fan today (as big as would fit) and Mcam now runs 3x faster than it was. So over time, it had gotten slower and slower as the internal fans got blocked up, and I suppose the case must have taken a bit of a knock for the fan lugs to break. So, just saying that in the workshop envirnoment that most of us probably work in, to do your PC's justice it may pay to spend $20 and 10 minutes of TLC! Cheers

Crazy - 12 gig, now thats just showing off!

Thanks for the reply. It's set to 75%. Do you know if it is safe to go to 90%, or will that create windows problems? Thanks

Hi All, Mcam runs fine normally, but when generating 3D scanning paths, it's a lot slower (PC's fault). If I look at Windows Task Manager, Mcam is only running 50-60% with nowt else open. Is there a way to allocate it more resource? Cheers

+1 for the collet pads. We fitted them to our machine - 1x screw per jaw to swap over. Also, if you need to revert to soft jaws or bar jaws, just swap them out. Quick and very easy.

MCM, Thank you for your time in detailing all of this. I've saved it and will experiment as you have suggested. Thanks again

Hi All, I'm very (read VERY) new to the 3d machining side of mastercam. The work we do frequently requires a rad or two that we usually use a corner rounding cutter on, but it would be nice to scan more. This also goes for ramping of angles/faces. I have looked at a few posts, and (by memory)James said in one that he likes flowline. I have tried this and it works well. But as for the new toolpaths, what Surface High Speed toolpath/strategy do you guys use for this sort of thing, or is it a case of the 'old' (flowline) works the best? Cheers

FWIW, I just looked on the Ganesh website. A lot of the range is identical to the XYZ machine tools (UK) arm of southwestern industries (prototrak). These are made in taiwan by King-Rich cnc machine tools, and brought to the uk to have either the prototrak or seimens controls fitted.

Greg, LOL. I like the sign off under your name!

+1 to the G10. We also use it for diameter offset as well. It's a lot neater storing datums and offsets in the program, and less chance of slykdexic fingers entering the info into the control...