Martin, we don't struggle with turning or milling 304L so much, though we aren't setting any speed records, but I just don't have the time to really sink my teeth into the drilling and tapping; that's where we really struggle sometimes. I've had more success threadmilling 304 than tapping it.

C

LOL, I have already been told that since I work for an Okuma distributor that my 20 years of machining experience with many, many different brands of machines is no longer valid, no need to remind me.

It isn't that your experience is not valid, but I find it very hard to believe that your employer would be cool with it if he read your post that said "Mazak is far better at multi-tasking machines than we are." I think I have told people working for multiple distributors on this forum exactly the same thing; you are most likely one of them.

I do not work for Okuma or The Robert E. Morris Company, nor do I receive any graft from them beyond the occasional t-shirt, and I can say that I would buy the MacTurn because two tools in the cut are better than one and Okumas ROCK. I, however, am not objective because I have a personal vendetta against Mazak (not joking, not enough bad things can happen to Mazak in New England), and I do not operate a Multus or MacTurn. We have an LT, which you don't want, and LB3000EX-MY, which you also don't want, along with a passel more Okumas.

C

4340 All day every day

4140 Sometimes

Ductile Iron All day every day

17-4PH most days

15-5PH most days

304L the days I want to drink after

303 not often enough

416 once in awhile

Nitronic 60 more days I want to drink after

1144 All day every day

1026 Sometimes

1018 Sometimes

7075-T6 Often

6061-T6 when I can't convince our engineers to use 7075

Our machines are all Okuma, Okuma-Howa, Mori, and Matsuura

C

Phil, I feel your pain, you can never get enough feedrate on finish tools to break a chip

On some parts when I back out of the bore with the rough boring bar I'll G04 in front of the part with the coolant flushing the hole out. If you're wrapping too many chips around the boring bar, you could make a ring to set screw to the tool plumbed with coolant from an adjacent empty station; index to the dummy station with the coolant on and flush the chips off. Air blast is useful for this also.

C

Sounds like you have it figured out and are on your way

Some days are better than others. My wife or my daughter being hurt because I cannot spend time with them every time they want me to because I need to do homework or research or whatever sucks; not being able to work on my car, or work on my buddies' cars, when I want to sucks; not sleeping more than [4] or [5] hours a night because I am working sucks; but sitting here and being pi$$ed about some decision that gets made in the Head Shed where the big guys meet sucks worse.

Know what you want, know why you want it, and spend your hours and your money on things to get you there.

C

My current employer is a $40M business with about [100] people here at the facility. I started here as a CNC Programmer / knock-around guy (although my title was Mfg Engineer) and have continuously pressed to get further into the decision making process. I now manage Manufacturing Engineering (3 guys) and the Tool Crib (1 guy and about $250K annual budget); research, specify and negotiate all machine tool purchases; handle facility layouts and associated rigging, electrical power, and machine installation; CNC machine tool service; review drawings; process Engineering Changes and Engineering Releases; program; fight fires in the shop; etc.

Even though I do all this stuff, I am still 2 levels in the org chart below VP-Manufacturing (which is where I'd like to end up) and 100% of our senior management hold Master's degrees or PhD. I'd like to stay here, so I need the paper to get where I want to go; if it doesn't work out that way, the paper will get me a better job somewhere else and I have learned a LOT of things I didn't know. Degrees are more than just sh!t to hang on the wall, there IS actual learning that can take place.

C

I am just curious if there is/should be a place for a business degree in a manufacturing environment below top management that usually doesn't know jack about manufacturing

Top management pays YOU to know jack about manufacturing; they are supposed to worry about managing.

There is nothing I like less than an executive who read a book about machining, or gets American Machinist, or has an uncle who's a machinist, and then comes over and tells me (the machining professional who has been working in the metal trades for fifteen years) what the cause of some problem is, or that it "should be quick" to move a job that was programmed by hand twenty years ago, in a Yasnac, with no work offsets, in a 25-tool, 6,000RPM, BT40 machine, to an Okuma, 10,000 RPM, 20-tools, CAT40. Assume that I know what I am doing; if I thought you could help me, I would've asked you.

The reasons that I want an MBA, so I can move up, do not include playing manufacturing engineer; I want to guide the direction of the company and let my guys do what they do. As an employee, you should not expect your boss to know how to do your job, as that is what they pay YOU to do; as a manager, you should not assume that you can do an employee's job, because THAT is the cause of much friction!

C

Thanks, Doug; that's good info. Unfortunately that now has me leaning further in the "don't buy" direction.

I am leaning towards an MBA at this point

I am in Northeastern's Online MBA program now, John, a little over halfway through; it has been quite a bit of work and isn't cheap ($60K or thereabouts)but it is 100% online which helps a lot because I can do schoolwork on my schedule. I really feel that I have topped out career-wise without a business degree, so down that road I go.

C

Man, this is a great topic for me in my current situation.

I truly HATE Hardinge CNCs; we have [2] 'Super Precision' Hardinge Conquest lathes from the mid 90s and I think they are absolute junk. Now that Morris / Okuma has Hardinge, they are trying to sell me on Hardinge mills with OSP (which we know and love) and I am really torn on what I want to do. The "real" Okuma VMC is like a hundred and a half, which I really don't want to spend for the area's requirements, but Okuma doesn't offer the "ES" series anymore.

Please keep this thread alive, and anyone who has experience with this 'new' construct please drop me a line with your relevant thoughts when you have a few minutes.

Thanks

C

Yeah, we have a subspindle Mori with the same asinine coordinate system as yours.

P200L is a really sweet control, just give it some time

I am here to help you; phone, web, or email

That is REALLY going to be determined by what you want to pursue. Do you want to design stuff or do you want to manage stuff?

+10,000 on this. I am a very smart guy: I had 1310 on my SAT, I had a 3.98GPA while obtaining my BA, I have a 3.85GPA in my MBA program, I have an innate sense about mechanical things and machining. I suck at complex mathematics (somebody mentioned Diff Eq...<shiver>) and I am not an imaginative, create something new out of thin air type of person. I know this, and this knowledge guides my decision making.

Who are you?

C

Phil, you know where to find me if you need me

C

For someone like me, that piece of paper isn't worth the pewp on it from wiping my arse with it

I'm glad that you respect the efforts and intelligence of those of us who are college-educated James.

I have a BS in Manufacturing Technology and I am more than halfway to my MBA because I want to be one of the guys in the meetings where all of the decisions are made, not the guy in the lunchroom b!tching about the guys in the meetings where all of the decisions are made. I went back to school at 38 years of age in order to get the MBA, and it sucks; do it now, while you're young and full of energy. Your career and life will be better for it.

C

I'm guessing mastercam's MTM capabilities will have us looking for solutions

I just spit my Coke on the monitor, Phil, thanks

I program our LT as [2] "regular lathes" and paste the code together; it works, but it is not as fast as it would be if the software actually worked

C

G60 / G61 is typically only active in feed moves; with a Fanuc the machine should be in exact stop by default on rapid moves. Are you saying that your XY move and your Z move are on different lines, but the machine is moving simultaneously in all three axes?

C

Where is Maine are you? How much rigging do you guys have done?

We move machines literally three or four times a year; shoot me an email cmoffattATharmonicdriveDOTnet and we'll talk about it.

C

I have seen a machine laid on its back before to deal with this, but I don't think that would help very much with that machine. If the machine was only an inch or two too big, you can typically dismount the electrical cabinet and squeeze it against the castings to squeak by (or take the doors off of the cabinet); we have done both. In your case, 6" is a long way to go. Another thing that you have to consider is that your parking lot is unlikely to be exactly perpendicular to the door opening; if the machine is coming through the door on skates, on a forklift, whatever, the higher the machine gets, the "wider" the machine gets because it'll be at a slight angle.

Is the exterior wall load bearing? They typically are not. If this is true, you can either have a wider overhead door installed, or have a masonry company temporarily widen the opening and put it back after the machine is in. If you don't want to do that, you'll have to ask your Haas reseller or your rigger / millwright if they'll take delivery for you and strip the sheetmetal off before delivery.

C

Additionally, there is an arrogance of complacency that comes from CNC when it comes to dealing with this.

It is this, more than anything else, that has rubbed loyal users and customers the wrong way.

TESTIFY brother I cannot begin to tell you how much you sound like me

You are exactly right. We typically use MODIN, but I can see using CALL if you weren't simply running back-to-back-to-back features:

CALL OPCKT

Do some other milling and move to a different location

CALL OPCKT

Do something different and move to another location

CALL OPCKT

This would not work with MODIN. However, if you were going to mill the same feature [50] times in a row, MODIN is really the way to go because it works (like you said) similarly to a canned cycle.

C

Martin, what drives your decision to go the "CALL" route over MODIN? Is there something that works better that way, or is it just personal preference?

C

I would use MODIN for something like that.

Your main program would say something like this:

N206

( T06 )

( 1/2 2FL CARBIDE STUB EM )

( ROUGH POCKETS )

G00 G17 G40 G53 G80 G90 G95

G30 P1

IF[VATOL EQ 06]NS206

T6 M06

NS206

G15 H20

X0. Y1.11 A0.

S1736 M03

G56 H6 Z.25 M08

MODIN OPCKT

G00 X0. Y1.11

G00 A90.

G00 A180.

G00 A270.

MODOUT

G00 Z.25

G53 M09

G30 P01

M01

Your subprogram (after the M30 but before the %):

M30

OPCKT

( your code here )

RTS

%

Hopefully this is what you were looking for

C

You should have a "cycle time reduction" manual or something for the machine that will (hopefully) show you how to defeat things like that. There should be a parameter that says "chuck rotation with tailstock ineffective" or something in there somewhere

Harvey is good; a guy swung in the shop a few weeks ago from B.C. Tool and Cutter Grinding that seemed like a pretty sharp dude, but I've never used them

BC Tool