Strange that they don't have a "max offset" listed; typically it is shown as a percentage of the drill diameter. I would holler at their tech support line, as every manufacturer is different.

C

Thank you, Daniel, for the information; I appreciate first-hand knowledge very much.

We have used CimcoEdit and DNCMax for many years, and Cimco has always been very supportive of us, even though we aren't a huge customer.

I will find out what I can about their product before we move much further down the path.

C

Thanks, guys

Doug, that looks interesting; do you have any customers running this?

Daniel, do you run / have you run the CIMCO product yourself? What did you think?

John, do you know who the reseller / partner is for that product?

We are planning to use MT Connect with P200 and newer OSP controls for now, and connect the Fanucs and the older OSPs down the road.

C

Has the machine ever worked before?

Jay, I saw you at the IMTS booth, but you were busy talking with someone so I didn't bother you

CIMQUEST is our CIMCO store; anyone over there that can speak to this product? Looking for a general overview of how the software works

Good morning,

Are any of you fine folks using any sort of machine- or productivity monitoring software?

Our Production management is curious about the lack of correlation between planned and actual production at times, and is interested in some data collection to generate real-time and historical dashboards to understand / display machine productivity.

We are currently focusing on MEMEX and MachineMetrics products, due to some partner feedback, but I see that CIMCO also has a product for this.

Sharing of thoughts and experience is much appreciated.

C

No % at the end of the program name or the end of the file?

$TEST.MIN%

()

your code here

()

M30

%

How did you make out?

 

 

With glass scales added to the Okuma you could expect same accuracies as the H51-SP, but even without scales, the Okuma holds incredibly tight tolerances. What type of tolerances are you trying to hold? less than .0005"? on a majority of features? We have customers running 24/7 holding +/-.0002 on select features without scales. Personally I would buy the Okuma without even thinking twice.

Has Hardinge made improvements to their "super precision" system? We had [2] 1997 Conquest Super Precision machines and they were nothing special.

We hold .0003 total tolerance on diameters all day long with LB3000EX-BB, LB3000EX-MY, and LB3000EX-MYW (hell, on L370BB from 2001).

Okuma all the way on this

We have [2] LB3000EX-MY and [1] LB3000EX-MYW, and I think that they, and all of my other Okuma lathes, are the nuts. Good size, good power, great control, good M-tool power and RPM, ZERO maintenance.

They are, as was stated above, "compound" Y-axis machines, which does limit Y axis travel toward the X negative limit (as stated above) because the X moves down as the Y moves down, but you won't care unless you are cutting inside of little parts, or trying to get all the way around the outside of big parts.

My only experience with Hardinge CNC lathes is [2] 1995-ish Super Precision machines, and I thought they were under-powered and overly sensitive compared to our Okumas.

My only experience with Mits CNC controls is a 2000-ish Mori and the operation / programming is fine, essentially a Fanuc; the parameters / control architecture sucks.

C

Squareness of the part to the gage is immensely important on that type of instrument. We don't have any of the gage you are showing, but we do use the Dorsey J2 Jaw Gage, which is the same basic idea but no micrometer adjustment.

Try a couple of things to see if you get better results:

1) Make sure the "foot" that the part sits on is in good condition, and parallel to the base of the gage, as best you can tell

2) Mark the "clock" position of the master, or part, you are measuring (we have a laser-marked line on the master which must be in-line with the spindle on the indicator when zeroing the gage) and make sure it is oriented the same way every time

3) I assume that the lever in front is for unloading the spring pressure of the indicator to take parts in and out. If so, "banging" one side or the other of the indicator swing throws off the zero on our gage. We need to VERY gently open the gage (but not enough to bottom the indicator), remove the part, and place the master back in to keep from bottoming the indicator going the other way. If we just let the indicator out to the end of its travel between parts, the zero is off.

May not help you, but that is my experience with similar stuff.

C

Guess I have been away too long

Doug, I think that the easy-op / easy-modeling, tool registration, attach/detach tools stuff sucks, in both the mill and the lathe.

I like the P200LA the best of any control we have; simple to use, powerful functionality.

The stock definition for animation in the P200 is lousy, but they could've fixed that without all of the other complicated crap in the P300.

I know I can shut off most, if not all, of the stuff I don't like, but I want my guys to run it the way that the REMCO apps guys run it, because their training and phone support is more effective that way

C

Doug, we are right down the road from Caron Engineering (relatively speaking) and have first-hand experience with their prowess. We are definitely going with AutoComp for this machine, and are excited to see how effective it is.

I hate the P300, but it seems like it supports the AutoComp well.

C

Ron, thanks for the information. I knew nothing about the Verisurf offering; be interesting to hear what the Renishaw guys have to say about that.

If we were working with a ±.002 tolerance, we would've bought this thing already; I have some parts going over to Renishaw this week for some measurement data feedback.

I will report back any impressions I have

C

I have, essentially, the same machine as Matt (rekd), Dell M6800,and it is a rockin' machine. Weighs 158 lbs, battery life is terrible, but runs X9, Solidworks, AutoCAD, and my ERP software simultaneously without a blip.

It ain't cheap, but i feel I got what we paid for.

C

Hello again, eMastercammers

I haven't been around much over the last decade or so, and feel a little bad about returning with my hand out, but not bad enough to stop me

I am looking for any feedback from users of the Renishaw Equator measuring system. We're looking to add automated measuring and feedback of measurement data to one of our turning centers, and the Renishaw Equator seems to have all of the functionality / features that we want, at a very reasonable price range.

That being said, i am concerned because of:

1) the rather erector set-like appearance of the thing

2) the fact that they master on an actual workpiece, not a calibration artifact, and compare all measured parts to this "master part"

3) that the +.0000/-.0005 ID and OD tolerances involved are tighter than we've typically been able to accurately measure with CMMs and similar machines

Currently, the machine will run for hours without requiring any offsets (Okumas rock), so the last thing we want to do is eff up the process by feeding back erroneous measurement data, but we're looking to begin some lights-out operations, and i can't have the machine making bad parts for [12] hours before somebody figures it out.

Any Equator experience, impressions, scuttlebutt would be appreciated.

Thanks

C

Cimco DNCMax rocks; we've been running for [7] years and it works fantastic. Sounds like you might want NC-Base, or whatever they call it, with which I have experience.

C

Thanks; I will see what I can round up

 

 

Plain and simple. Do what you say. Say what you do.

Ron, I appreciate your comment, and I respect your opinion, but I do not agree with this statement in the case of AS9100. There are requirements that need to be met; the HOW and the WHEN they need to be met is our major problem. 

About 90% of our issues come in the flowdown of quality requirements to sub-tier suppliers; this is a grey area in our opinion and we're looking to have someone shine a light on it. If we interpret the standard in the strictest sense, which we tend to do, the cost of many purchased items becomes ridiculous, and some items are simply impossible to procure in a compliant fashion. Our contract review is becoming better at rejecting quality clauses invoked by customers in the order acknowledgement process, but the customers don't like this, so we're trying to figure out if we're pi$$ing them off unnecessarily.

C

Yeah, I have a copy and have read it a bunch of times, but there is a boatload of room for interpretation and that's what we're struggling with.

ttt

ttt

Good afternoon,

Does anybody out there, preferably in the Northeast, but not necessarily, have a really solid AS9100 / ISO9000 consultant?

We are AS9100 certified and are struggling with how to handle space, aviation, and defense customers that want commercial-ish product; our default response is to create all kinds of work for ourselves and document away any money that we could have made on the project. Our customers want lower pricing, and we need to make some money, so we're looking for a critique of how we are interpreting the standard, provided by someone who does this for a living.

Thanks in advance.

C

As long as you have SOME idea of where the feature is that you would like to probe (part against a stop, bolted down through fairly precise holes, etc), this is pretty straightforward. Drop me a line, if you'd like.

C