Tazzer:I used to wire edm, conventional edm, drill, mill, grind, and heat treat this stuff for over 11 years. Very common in mold making to transfer heat and certain prototype fighter plane parts. We did so much of this stuff on a production basis that osha slapped a air meter on my back to test for contamination. Do wear a high quality respirator though and not some cheap paper dust mask. For drilling use a split point grind at about 135 deg. If it's heat treated you'll be using carbide spade drills. For milling go with high helix solid carbide, 3 flute. The key is to not let the material know it's being cut. With this in mind, the methods become quite clear.

Hmm... Haas support. Well they will send a lotta guys who will you will get to know quite well over the ensuing weeks of "support" and you may even want to give them their own office and coffee pot as they will soon become almost temporary employees. They will need a data link and a fax machine also. On the other hand they are very nice people and are local.

Just a second thought...why not replace the weak and wheezy stock coolant pump with something that pulls more volume and attach a regulator valve to suit your conditions?

Haas's are notorious overflowers. Never saw one that wasn't. Never had any foaming trouble though. At my last shop we used Cimcool at the stock dilution. No trouble at all. Gotta keep the "sluice box" clean. All the grates at each stage must be clear. I put a window screen just below the area where the collant dumps in to the tank. Also use the full volume of coolant available, not just a trickle as the tool will just whip air in to the coolant. A tramp skimmer might help with the foam as well as "defoaming tablets".

I have 13 guitars. Gibsons mostly. The crown jewels are a 71' Les paul custom, and a 66' B1245 (12 string acoustic).I also have a Schecter C7+ which is a 7 string electric.

is this a tapered hole or is this a hole set at an angle?

no. the shade command is global.

In my opinion, go with your moral compass on this one. If you tell the chief he might look like a fool but he pays you get results. You don't tell the chief and he wonders why not when he finds out later. If you're wrong, duck and cover. Either way it looks like a mess. Document and tell the truth. Use the documentation to tell the story and allow the questions to formulate in the chief's head. If you're canned, go to the labor board.

ground off of a competitors product that is.

cool bhyde. As a side note I once turned down a job that would have had me engraving a logo in the exact same spot as the original logo that was ground off.

First choice for me would be Tyan, then Asus.

I like to start at the bottom of the hole and program 1 revolution and then loop it all the way out of the hole. I and J is the way to go and if you go incremental then you just have to do this once.

just be careful not to put this thing on anything that is gonna be sold to the public or ford will hit you with a c&d.

try running the subroutines instead of the control program.

Anybody hear about a company called Trend Tooling in Los angeles and wanna share?

My last job didn't pay for solids. And I miss them really bad. Just think of them as clay and you are the sculptor. Put the clay knives in your hands and carve away. Pretty easy I think. Perhaps my next job will actually pay the licensing fees this time.

Why not try "helix" or "ramp" for your entry move? This way there is no reason to drill any holes.

I used to program one of those. +/-.002 is the best that yer gonna git. MPMASTER or MPEZ are the posts to use. Nice vaccuum system.

I learned by hammering it out. As Sherlock Holmes said "eliminate all the posibilites and that which remains is the truth". Sure I've had classes and had guys show me some tricks here or there but I've learned the most by trying every concievable option in the program until I found what works. That said, the old V6 factory book (about 3 inches thick) is outstanding because it gives you a foundation to get started with. The newer books are in my opinion, no more than illustrated help files that are available in the help section of MCAM itself, which by the way supprisingly few programmers even bother with. Same goes for the sample files which were done by the people who make the program. Just check out how the factory concieved the toolpaths and fit them to your own application. Makes sense right?. Two more things: 1) Know your g-code (this is critical!!) and 2) Ask for help from this board. [ 02-16-2004, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: herbert west ]

My answer would be no because you are not picking the solids to machine only the surfaces hence the "all surfaces" command. I like to put the surfaces and the solids on different levels or at least change the colors and pick the color of what I want to machine.

Jay: I live in Hollywood. On a map it looks like the same amount of travel although I am more familiar with the Newbury park route.

Thanks James! I have spoken with Cris K and Brian from CCCS in newbury park. Didn't even think of the other office. Once again thanks to everybody for their help!!

In my opinion the way to go for me would be to go asian. Mori-seiki, Hitachi-seiki, Ooya, Okk, Enshu, Okuma-howa, Matsuura, Kuraki, Viper etc. In a 50 taper machine these guys will throw vises and snap large tools without even slowing down.

actually it doesn't matter which lines you pick first. you can change their orientation with the next command.

I have a lot of experience with Haas. Their controls are excellent, just cover the floppy port with tape to seal out shop dust. The early ones from around 94',96' are more reliable then the newer ones. At my last shop we had a VB11 and the service people were there so much that we were gonna give them their own office and coffee pot. The 5 axis drill cycles didn't work, the spindle died three times in a month, the chip auger flew up from out of the machine bed and mangled the sheet metal twice. Haas.. good entry level machine, excellent contol, good for light work in 40 taper class. Have you looked at Mazak?, Enshu?, Mori?. I would look at a refurbished japanese machine myself.