Here's how mine works (fanuc 18I) In ptlchg_com; look for; code: pbld, n, next_tool, e and replace it with; code: if t <> next_tool, pbld, n, next_tool, e Not sure about the M06.

quote: I also believe that you can not become good programmer without operator-machinist experience .+1 Iskander

quote: Tell them, from now on, not to come to you with a problem without bringing at least TWO possible solutions with them.Some people work only for the money and some have a passion for their work. In our shop the passionate gets the most money though.

What I find with the "children" at work is that the ones that say "Your program sucks" are the ones that don't take the time to find out what the real problem is (laziness) and I can usually walk out to the floor and find the problem in 2 minutes. The people that come in saying "I have a problem" have already gone through their setups and the problem a lot of times is within the program. I know sometimes I'm curt the the "Your program sucks" people and I can understand why the forum is also.

TheePres, I draw all my custom tools to scale (.720 in your case). I've never understood the 1.00 dia that MC talks about on the help screen. I'm thinking they meant 1.00 scale.

Welcome to the forum. I've haven't tried to manually program "G60" moves through a post, but my question would be what kind of tolerances are you trying to hold that you would need it on a OKK or Makino? (don't know about Cinci's). If you truly need it on millions of dollars of machines then another couple of thousand shouldn't matter.

Sorry, with a rotory broach I go .020 deeper. Drill it out with a .052/.055 dia drill. (depending on material)

quote: Can you post a sample of what the code looks like, and what you want it to look like? +1 Also turn your fastmode off in your post so we can see where the problem is coming.

For a .050 hex I would think .010 should be all you need. I go .020 deeper with a 5/32" hex.

Are you trying to rotate or translate the pockets? Do you have the home pos turned on in the tool parameters screen?

You'll love it. We use ours for all different materials. Two notes; 1. When running sst we have a longer insert life when we feed the broach out. We usually feed ours out at 3*feedrate. 2. If you run heavy production you will want to give the broaching tool a squirt of grease a couple times a day or so.

quote: Some floating tape holders like tapmatic holders I work always need to be programmed with less feed than real to pull them out when entering tapeing hole and push in while returning...Eeyore, You can change the thread pitch in the tool manager ex. a 32 pitch thread can be set at 37.647 threads (32 threads/.85)resulting in the same feedrate as Misc Real 10 would but you only need to create it once and rename the tool as "10-32 tap - tapmatic". This will also eliminate "forgetting to set the misc real 10" especially if you use both tapmatic and hard tapping.

cncchuck, With the rotary broaches the spindle remains on and you can broach much quicker and the cutting inserts last a lot longer.

The idea of the misc. variables in this case is that you can change the percentage of MC's speeds on every operation needed. IMHO the best way to setup the "correct" speeds/feeds on a consistant basis is to create in the tool manager the tools you need for each material. After the tools are created and the speeds are proven you only need to click on the specific tool needed and save the effort needed to recreate the speeds every time you have to use a tool again.

+1 to The Iron Chef. We use Slater Tools and they work fine. We've also made our own broaching tools for internal keyways and screwdriver slots and used the G92 canned cycle for our passes.

Merry Chrismahanukwanzakah to all and a happy new year.

Thanks guys, quote: One or two pallets with muliti locks, 2-4 with standardized tombstones. Fixure plates were then made up to ball lock quickly onto tombstone. dedicated fixture for every part. 1-2 pallets with standardized fixturing for centrally mounted parts, ie. the whole part sits in the middle of the pallet and work is performed on all sides.Sounds like our shop just a higher percentage of clustertowers.

We keep a database for each machine/control with the main programs numbers starting at 1. On my horizontals I use the 4??? numbers for the toolpath macros, 5??? for the routing macros and 6??? for the probing macros.

We'll have the probe and chip conveyor. My biggest concern is support for setting up our lot sizes (5 to 10). We'll always be setting up something (tooling/fixturing) If this works out like we hope production control will be cutting wo's for 3/4 weeks usage (it's at 6 and 12 weeks now) making our quantities lower still. My immediate thoughts are setting up a common tooling base for the first 20 to 30 tools and keeping less common tooling on a rack/cart and setting up uncommom tools individually for each job. For each program I'm thinking of using macro to create a link from the program's tool numbers and the tooling pot where the less common/uncommon tools would start from in each main program. Then I think I might be better off just putting all tooling in for each job and yank them out each time when we're done and rename each starting pot as tool 1. It's the same with the fixtures, do I get extra pallets and store common fixturing setups (very expensive) or let the operators resetup the fixtures on every work order? I'm sure there are a lot of "little" things we will need to help support this pallet pool, just don't know what they are yet. The only time I've seen this done with small quantities is at the Mazak complex in Kentucky but we're not ready for that kind of automation.

Hi James, Sorry about responding so late. I'm at home on vacation now and with the Christmas stuff going on ... The mandatory stuff you mentioned was all on the proposal but the dataserver and the tool length measurement for the Tsugami so I'll have to make sure the dataserver is included also. I haven't seen the Enshu proposal. Both machines use the Fanuc 18 control. We're looking into getting a tool presetter so we can get the tool lengths/Dia offline but I think I like the tool length measurement better so I'll bring it up when I get back to work. What quantities does your pallet pool run? Are there any accessories off the machine that your operators use that we might need? I appreciate the offer for the post. I'll send you my reseller's info next month.

We had to have our last two Enshu's with fanuc 18I controls dialed in. Turned out that they were mistuned when they were assembled. When we ran G05 or G08 they ran good. We sent Enshu our defective parts and they sent a guy in to reset some parameters and now we no longer need look ahead. If your local Shoda rep can't fix the problem you may want to go over their head and call Shoda yourself.

If you're looking for a thread mill for a 1 1/2? dia thread you should look for an indexable thread mill. (don't know if ToolFab carries this, if so it should be just fine). I use Kennametal, Carboly and Advent myself. All work just fine. If you use a certain name or have a favorite rep to work with, they should be able to provide you one. With an indexable thread mill you just need to buy different insert for each thread pitch you might use.

If you're on a network, you can use your machine's pc to send the files. Look in Start, Programs, Accessaries, Communications, HyperTerminal. Type the machine name, OK, go to "connect" pick a com port, OK, set your baud rates ect., and you're ready. (win xp)

quote: If you break a tool in the middle of a fixture run, can you pick up where it broke without drilling a bunch of air? V41 = "E" value of first part V42 = "E" value of last part The operator can type any value. If you want to start at part 5 end end at 11, just go to the variable screen on the control type 5 in variable 41 and 11 in variable 42. Setting mi1 in you toolpath manager to 3 will run the parts from the first part to the last. Set it at 4 and and the toolpaths will go fron the last part to the first. No tranforming toolpaths are required.

My toolpath subprograms are named sequentially as each tool is called. The first tool in each program file will run programs 4011 through 4013 (depending on the situation). The second tool run prograns 4021 through 4023 ... Every program file has the same program numbers. I can't (yet) setup two programs at one time without the subs running on top of each other if all the "active" programs are in one memory area let alone eleven. I'm hoping all the programs are stripped from active memory and then the next program file were loaded in on each pallet change. What extra accessories would you recommend for a starter?