I have used both the endmill- and facemill-style 390 cutters with good success in a variety of materials; the only problems I've had has been rattling the inserts out of the cutter in one application with heavy interruptions. The cutter body doesn't cut particularly well, too negative

Anytime Beware of the "lower cycle time" idea though, any of my 3 machine cells (2 lathes & a mill) will stomp my LT15M for run time on the same piece... ...however, since I don't need a guy in front of the LT all day... Low Operator dependency..good High cycle time..bad

Gentlemen I'm with Rick. We have an LT15M with the U100L control and do the programming as if it were two machines, then marry the programs together with the different peculiar coding that Okuma requires. This leads to a lot of "Asynchronous" alarms until you get the hang of it, but is still pretty effective. Everyone that I've spoken to about these machines says that "no one" has a post that will properly generate code for this machine. I wouldn't swear to that, but I know I've not found anyone who says they have it. On another front, the LT specialist from my distributor says that the Okuma IGF shop-floor system writes a very useable program for the machines as long as you don't try to edit the code itself. The hangup there is, I guess, that the IGF program is constantly switching back and forth from the A-turret (G13) mode to the B-turret (G14) mode which makes the code an unbelievable nightmare to read. Why you would want to program a machine like that on the floor is, however, a mystery... If anybody out there has a good post for this, please, prove Rick and me wrong, I'm sure we'll both jump in line to get it

A Fadal Fan !?!?!?!?!? You, my man, are rarer than the California condor!

The BIG city...

Talk about too much time on your hands... C

This is the USA, fella, we operate at the correct scale here, not at 25.4x scale like the rest of you guys out there [ 06-25-2002, 07:10 AM: Message edited by: chris m ]

It can't be too much less like a real machine tool than a Fadal... C

The post CD and book (a MasterCAM reference written 1997) are about the only thing out there that I know about. We just picked those up from our reseller ourselves for very short $. Tough to understand at first for shop guys like me, but if you have some computer programming knowledge its much easier to understand (at least thats what our resident computer-smart guy tells me). Even if you only get limited use out of it, you can't go wrong for the $. C

I double-posted somehow and can't delete it now, oops [ 06-20-2002, 12:09 PM: Message edited by: chris m ]

If at all possible, could you drop that file out here somewhere, I think a bunch of us might have the same issue Thanks C

My 2 If you are new to sweeping a bore for center, it can be a bit of a workout to get in the ballpark; if possible it might be easier to edge find something on the part or set up a stop and dial over to where you think the hole should be, then stick on the indicator and make fine adjustments from there... or... I have also used the method Andrew describes and feel it is fairly accurate to eyeball an edge finder into the center of the hole, edge find the left and right "sides" of the hole, and split the difference to find the center; repeat for y axis and you're there. I know its a hack, but it can be pretty accurate and will at least get you close enough so that your indicator isn't bottoming when you start off sweeping. C [ 06-20-2002, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: chris m ]

The actual useable horsepower on any machine for prolonged cuts and reliable performance is almost always considerably less than the number they use to advertise. For example, on one of my Okumas, advertised as 10 hp, the "30 minute" horsepower available is 10 hp, but the "continuous duty" horsepower is only 7.5 hp. Now, you're probably thinking "I don't make any cuts longer than 5 minutes, so the 30 minute rating might as well be the continuous rating"; not quite. While technically true, this practice would put a serious beating on the machine, lessening reliability and machine life. Since you are a small shop, I would imagine you'd like the machine to last for 10 years (or 15, or 20), the best way to do that is to invest in the most rugged machine you can afford. You see a lot more 15 year old Matsuuras and Mori Seikis than 15 year old Haas' or Fadals for that very reason. Whew.. sorry about the sermon, but this very issue (underpowered machines) is a constant problem in my shop.. The short version is: Buy the 10 HP spindle, you can never, ever, have too much grunt, especially for what sounds like very short $ C

Amen to that!

Inserted UDrills (Sandvik's and others (C/T, etc.) will stomp the guts out of spade drills all day long. Pretty doggone expensive, though

Heeler Your Fanuc 18 doesn't have a measure function? Ours does; could it be an option? C

TheePres, my Sandvik guy came by the other day with a new inserted endmill that they're pushing for aluminum only; if you guys deal with them at all you may want to have the Sandvik guy come in with one on a demo. Very agressive insert profile, nice looking tool; they say their new inserts drop power consumption dramatically (allowing more feed, if you have the horses). I didn't have a job to try it on, personally, but its probably worth a look. C

Sandvik's inserted UDrills work very well for us, no coolant thru might be a bitch, though. Definitely keep the speed down and the feed up or the stuff will get so hard you'll blow the drill up for sure (it'd probably be worth a conservative peck if you can't get the coolant to it). C

Ouch! Setup can be a killer; many ways to reduce it though: 1) Beav's 2" presetter is a good quick way (MSC sales flyer this month, very short money). 2) Dedicated tools are good if you can use them (touch it off once and you'll know the length for ever), we use these a lot on our Okumas as you can set it up so that the tool length offset is the same number regardless of which machine the tool is in (love my Okumas). 3) Renishaw (and others, I'm sure) make tool measurement tools that will check the tool length and diameter and write to your offset register using a subprogram; probably pricey, though... 4) The lathe answer, of course is quick-change, quick-change, quick-change. Very expensive up front but a huge timesaver on repeat jobs. Good luck C

Didn't realize you were in V9; we haven't used ours yet (just got it in). Sorry C

Do you mean that the machine will make, for example, 4 passes to machine the part, but the backplot shows 5? If the posted data is right, I wouldn't think it'd be a post-processor problem; would it? C

We just got our V9 the other day; haven't really had to time play with it, though (too many new jobs that are due "yesterday"). We're definitely interested in talking about the post when we get rolling! C

I don't know about web sites, but most decent cutting tool manufacturers have "recommended" feeds and speeds in their books (OSG, SGS, Sandvik, KM, etc). If you need to, I don't think it'd be too difficult to create your own spreadsheet with their information. Keep in mind that manufacturers typically want to make their product look good so their charts are pretty aggressive and feeds and speeds are always very dependent on workholding, tool length, etc. C

Little did I know that I was uncorking a tornado in a bottle! I have contacted In-House regarding that post you guys talked about and will talk to our MC reseller about theirs; I'm thinking that should get us off the ground. I'm sure once they teach us how to actually turn the machine on I'll be back out here to do some more brain picking. Thanks a lot for the input guys, I really appreciate it! C P.S. $250K for the Integrex?!?! About $400K for ours!!

I am with you on the offline programming. Though some of the machines I run have terrific shop-floor programming capabilities; I do not use them at all because of the fact that the machine doesn't make $ if the wheels aren't turning (don't particularly care for standing in front of the machine half the day staring at an 8" screen, either). I didn't know if the Mazatrol had an offline option (even my ProtoTRAKs have that!) or not, but, from what I'm hearing, it doesn't sound like it. The In-House post that you mentioned, do you know if that will handle my twin-spindle with C-axis contouring on both sides? We're definitely leaning toward EIA programming on MC, but I'm just fishing for opinions out here. C