I don't have direct experience with that model, but to say it's in a different class of machine tool than an EC-1600 would be a bit of an understatement. No question it's a huge, heavy, high quality, massively built, tank of a machine - my only concern would be Kitamura's relative inexperience with large horizontals. They've only been building those HX800,1000, and 1250 models for a few years. Building a big horizontal entails a lot more places to screw stuff up than building a big vertical (rotary table, pallet changer, etc) I wouldn't let that stop me from buying the Kitamura, but I'd definitely want to visit some other users of the same machine. A buddy of mine bought a 1200mm horizontal from a builder that hadn't built them before, and it was never sorted out. In the price range you're talking about, you might want to check out the Makino a92 as well.

I actually thought maybe Wanquer was dead, or in jail or something - because I hadn't seen any of his alter egos here in so long. But I clicked your video and right there on the side of it, is a novel about full graphical editing of the toolpath.

LMAO your video has been up for 10 minutes and Wanquer is already frothing all over it. Must be fun being unemployed.

I'm so disappointed by this thread. When I saw the title I was excited to see what possible use Rickster could have for the END key, and how it could be impacted by a bug. Pretty let down to see that his bug was that it simply exists.

Interesting. Is your post set up for TOP>TOP as B0, or are you using TOP>FRONT for B0?

Pretty awesome. I'm guessing the price would give me IBS though.

Might as well throw NCSimul in the mix as long as you're looking at all comers.

We just go in and change the rapid parameter, then when it's all proved out, we crank it back up to max.

Is it the toolpath that's saving you 70%, or the fact that Ron is doing it for you?

We have a little Okuma lathe with the absolute insanity of not having a rapid over ride. We call it the Charlie Sheen lathe - One Speed, One Gear, GOOOOO.

All of my Mazak Matrix controls are .00001. I haven't looked at new machines from anybody else in awhile so I just assumed everybody else was doing it by now too. It really is nice having that 5th decimal, especially when a tool is going to work on both sides of a part, effectively doubling the comp value.

I didn't feel like doing anything productive this morning, so I did the work for you. The obnoxious part is moving the decimal around so that the FIX function can strip away the hours, leaving just the minutes. I'm sure there's a more elegant way to do this, but I tend to stick with what's simple. I just ran it and it works perfect. (#705 IS FINISH TIME MINUS START TIME) #705=[#701-#700] #706=[#705/10000.] (DIVIDE TOTAL TIME BY 10,000 TO GET DECIMAL BETWEEN HOURS AND MINS) #707=FIX[#706] (USE FIX FUNCTION TO ELIMINATE EVERYTHING TO THE RIGHT OF THE DECIMAL, LEAVING ONLY THE HOURS) #707=[#707*10000.] (MULTIPLY THE HOURS BY 10,000, TO END UP WITH HOURS ONLY, AS A WHOLE 6 DIGIT NUMBER) #708=[#705-#707] (SUBTRACT WHOLE NUMBER OF HOURS FROM TOTAL CYCLE TIME, TO LEAVE ONLY THE MINUTES AND SECONDS) IF[#708LE5999.]GOTO555 (IF THE MINUTES AND SECONDS ARE LESS THAN 5999, NO FURTHER ACTION IS NECESSARY) #709=[#708-6000.] (SUBTRACT 60 MINS FROM CYCLE TIME) #710=[[#707+10000.]+#709] (CARRY THE 1 FROM THE MINUTES, AND ADD THE HOURS BACK TO THE MINUTES) #705=#710 (REPLACE ORIGINAL CYCLE TIME WITH 60 MINUTE CORRECTED CYCLE TIME) N555 (CYCLE TIME MINUTE/HOUR CALCULATION NOT NEEDED) M30

Oh yeah, forgot about that. You'd need to isolate the minutes, check to see if they're above 60, then subtract 60 from the minutes and add 1 to the hours if they are. Sort of a PITA.

You could do: #702=[#701-#700] So that your output is just the actual cycle time. Not a huge difference, but you wouldn't have to do the math each time.

I think nowadays just about all of the Japanese builders are doing .00001 as the smallest increment in inch mode, aren't they?

That was the deal breaker for me on Renishaw's OMV or whatever they were calling it a couple years ago, when it was their own standalone system. I've seen the PC-DMIS NC, and it looks pretty awesome. But as everybody here knows all too well, when it comes to software - looks can be a tiny bit deceiving. Skip to 2:10 in this video:

Find one of your existing files that has four identical parts, one on each face of a four sided tombstone. Create a toolpath that cuts on the right side of the part (Tombstone will Index to B90). Use Toolpath>Transform>Rotate that toolpath so it runs on the right side of the other three parts. Create a toolpath that works on the front of the part with the same tool as the previous toolpath. (Tombstone at B0). Transform>Rotate that so it works on the front of the other four parts. When you post - it will move from the 4th instance of the right side program, to the first instance of the front program, without sending it home (since there's no B index, so it won't tell it to go home). KABOOM.

You'd need a drawbar force tester. You never want to wing a spindle right back up to high speed, even if it's only been sitting for an hour. You need to run the warmup program again. I can believe a .0008 jump going from idle for an hour to 12krpm for 20 minutes. There are a handful of different temperature sensors in the spindle, and they (should be) are calibrated for the machine at continuous operation. You wing it up from a cold start, and you get a big jump in bearing temp, with no change in cartridge temp (or something along those lines) and the comp is gonna go stupid. After the machine has been running at high speed for an hour, observe the spindle load while running at 14,000rpm. Now let it sit for an hour, and spin it back up to 14,000rpm. The load will be 3-4x higher. That's your bearings being tortured.

Bob, what was the machine doing prior to the 12k rpm, 20 minute run? I'd try it again, and continue it running for another 20 minutes. Most likely, it'll still be the same -.00082. .0008 is a little excessive, but if you were dead cold beforehand, I could see that happening. That machine probably has a 30ish minute warm up cycle, no?

Yeah we always force home on index as well. This problem happens when a final instance of a transform/rotate operation is at the same B axis orientation as the first instance of the next transform rotate operation. If you have an operation on the B90 side of the part, followed by the B0 side of the part, it runs perfectly fine, because it goes home between operations. When you Transform/Rotate those toolpaths to the other 3 sides of the tombstone, the B90 operation goes: B90 B180 B270 B0 When it's done, it moves on to the next toolpath.....since that ones starts at B0, there's no index, which means there's no Z home. Bad juju.

This seems like a good place to mention a potentially spindle destroying disaster that I narrowly avoided a week ago, after translating/rotating safely for many years. I was surprised this is the first time this ever happened to me: I use the MPMaster post, and it retracts to Z home before every B axis move. BUT - if you have consecutive transform/rotate toolpaths with the same tool, and the first B axis orientation of the second path, is the same as the final B axis orientation of the previous path, it will just change work coordinates and move straight through the tombstone in XYZ. Since there's no index call, there's no go-home call. I figured this out 7 hours into the prove out of an 8 hour long program, on about the 35th tool. I got extremely lucky, because the tool went from working on the left side of the tombstone, to working on the front of the tombstone - and cleared the part by about .100. The very next tool had two instances that would have gone straight through the tombstone. (Then I sent Bob a PM, asking him how much he paid for Vericut LOL) You can program around this disaster by paying close attention to how you order your toolpaths that use the same tool, but it's one more thing to worry about.

Yikes. Might want to pull the eject handle on this one early. Even if you get it dialed in right now, next week they're going to run the thing hogging aluminum at 20K rpm for 12 hours straight, measure a tool .0002 too long, and then call you and rip you up one side and down the other for the machine not being in spec.

In the event you only need to replace one of the tools and you're satisfied with where everything else is - you skip the initial B90 facing, B270 facing/B0 measure portion of it. The routine only sets the tools relative to the "master" tool again. So whether the machine is hot or cold, any tool you replace is going to come out perfect matched with what you've already got. The presetter is definitely a wonderful tool that's worth having - it just depends on how many other $20,000 items you need worse.

As bad as I want to purchase a new presetter - I can't justify it because the following process works so damn well: Pick a tool that you want to use as your "master" - preferably something that the other tools for that program are going to need to match perfectly with. Do the same B90 facing, B270 facing, B0 X measurement I described earlier, and dial in that length offset. Presumably you have at least .010 or so extra stock in the Z direction, on the material you're using for this job. Take a little test facing cuts with each of the tools at B0, starting with the "master" tool. With ball mills, you'll need to do a very fine zig zag to get a flat/accurate enough surface to probe. Write a probe routine that probes the master tool's B0 test cut, and set's that as Z0. Then probe each spot from your other tools' test cuts, and let the Renishaw 9811 macro update the tool length of each tool. Throw in a new piece of stock, and run the program again. The second time, every tool should be under .0001 Here's a screen capture of one that I run right now, that blends .5, .375, .25, .156, .125, .0937, .0625, and .019 endmills all to perfection. If you're doing this on a daily basis with tons of different tools, obviously the presetter will pay for itself fairly quickly. But if you have a pretty standard set of tools that need to be blended - you'll find yourself having a hard time parting with $30K to get the exact same results. (Although, I do have a crappy old TMM900 that I use to get tools within .0006 or so - which might be part of why I can't justify dropping the coin on a brand new one) It takes 5-10 minutes to make the cutting and probing program, but then it's saved with the actual part program, and it can just run with the push of a button the next time that job is being set up, or the next time you need to change one of the tools on that job.

How are you measuring the part to see that it's .0032 thin? Is it .0032 thin at the top of the part's Y, middle of it's Y, and bottom of it's Y? Also, is it .0032 thin at the bottom and top in the Z direction? If the two cut faces are perfectly square/parallel, you can rule out rotary problems for the most part. What is the material, the tool, and gage length of the tool/holder assembly? Also, measuring the master on the laser doesn't really do anything (unless your master is a nice sharp endmill that you can take a cut with.) Face at B90, face at B270, then spin back to B0 and measure that width with the probe. Adjust that tool length until the width is DEAD NUTS, then use that as your master. .0032 is a MILE. We don't see that much on 4 or 5 axis machines here, even with 25-30 degree temperature swings. I'm guessing it's going to be something simple.