Seems like its in spec. No problem here...

If you want to be good at 5 axis there are only so many books you can read.... I find the hardest part with people is getting them to think in a "multiaxis" world.

A great exercise you can do to get your brain thinking 5 axis is to just grab random objects around you (mouse, pencil, water bottle, shoe, etc) and try to visualize how you would machine this shape on a 3 axis, then a 4 axis, then a 5 axis, then maybe a mill-turn if your brain still has some juice left in it. How can i grip this to access that types of thoughts? How will the part move as I machine material away? How will it relax once I unclamp this crazy widget? and on and on and on...

Multi-axis machining is as much of an art form as anything else. You are the artist. The process is your canvas, Cut off an ear and go to town!

Just ran some unattended parts with some tight tolerance 5 axis features and used probing to make it all possible. The parts had a +/-.0005 Dia bore that had to be machined from both sides. Good ole haas love to heat up and move around so relying on just COR for this wasn't gonna work.

I machined half of the bore from one side, spun it 180 and did a wash down on the bore with that tool.

Grabbed the probe and then from this side reached through to the the bore I just did on the opposite side, set a Work offset for just this feature, checked the size and position(more for mixxxx/chips hitting the probe. Then came and machined the other side of the bore. At the end of the program I had the probe check the whole bore from one side for size and position. This worked great. Both sides were within .0002ish from side to side and only drifted .0001-.0002 in size throughout the 30 part run (verified with a cmm)

In process probing IMHO is way underutilized compared to the overall payback. I'm probably going to check more features as an in-process check when running unattended now.

27 minutes ago, JB7280 said:

A coworker built a holder using the exact same model and it worked fine.  So it has to be something wrong with my install.  

Could be something to do with the system or chaining tolerances. I have had issues that were linked to different users using different config tolerances and this had a big effect of things.

Hope this helps!

5 hours ago, rgrin said:

 We are extremely bad at keeping things up to date since our engineering team is more worried about quoting new work as opposed to updating old work.

Without thorough documentation your journey is all but Doomed.

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMEEED

I say.

As a small operation I am always looking at ways to increase throughput and grow the shop $$$ wise without adding labor.

At first 3D printing seems like a no-brainer. Hit print. Profit. Retire.

But in reality there still seems like alot of logistical labor intensive things such as harvesting said parts, removing supports, post process, package, etc just like with any other manufactured good. I see guys with print farms on youtube and I always wonder how much money do they actually make 3D printing parts plastic widgets?

It appears the tech now is so widely available that to get any kinda of value-add you need to get into higher end processes with materials that an average print farm can't do.

So now you get into the higher end machines, with higher costs and still have the post processing issues as before, but now instead of removing support material with pliers you need a wire edm. Oh and don't forget the PPE requirements go up as well. You spend more money to then spend more money. Oh and don't forget the 100's of hours of failed prints dialing in everything!

So where's the money at to support all of this?

Is high end additive stuff only for exotic oem or is there any way that a small jobshop could add this to their capabilities realistically?

I see some value add in quick turn R&D with it added to a 5 axis cell and a small team you could easily iterate through design phases and scale to production very efficiently.

Anyone care to share their sage additive knowledge. I just want to hit print and take nap.

So many questions to give you some good feedback...

What kind of machine/Pallet Pool?

What type of work? 

What type of materials?

Cube size/Weight of parts?

Quantity of each part#?

How good are your operators?

How well can they follow instructions?

Can you do critical features with dedicated tooling/offsets so you know these features are dialed in and don't need to probe?

What is the avg material cost for these parts?

How many shifts do you run?

To really get a 5 axis cell to shine and pump out work takes a COMPREHENSIVE look at the entire process as a whole. This includes the business management side as well because when you really get the parts cranking 24/7 you run into a whole host of problems that have nothing to do with the actual machining...

Its really amazing what one spindle can churn out with the right support and encouragement!

Another reason is possibly the HAAS NGC got the "wokeAF" update where 2+2=5 and .9000000 is not equal to .9000000 because you know, societal discrimination or racism, or sexism, but probably all of the above.

Are you loading the macro into the control with the Prog O00000?

I know on my machine I was told that you need to have a blank program O0000 otherwise random things will happen.

So possibly when you are using O0000 this is interfering with something in the background

--

Another thing with macro variables is that you may initialize it to #1=5.0000 but internally the control will initialize it to 5.00000021516 or something because they are using floating point numbers which are never exact. so when you do a EQ comparison it may appear that it is equal but internally it is not. I always use 4-5 decimals just to be safe. Not sure if this helps but as you see here nothing is every straightforward and I find doing things the same way leads to more consistent/expected results when doing stuff like this.

Also I never use LE and GE. I always use GT and LT a have never had an issue.

Instead of [ #1 LE 5.0000]

I will use [ #1 LT 5.0001]

--

Possibly add 2-3+ blank lines between each statement to MAKE SURE they are not being overrun by the look ahead, even when set to 1 block it seems to still like to overrun. I have had to add 5-10 blank lines between blocks to get things to work as expected and not overrun creating unexpected macro behavior.

I would take a few days away from this project and magically the right solution will come to you. Let your subconscious do the work for you!

If this is haas you need to cancel the look ahead for macros to calculate correctly.

G103 P1 should limit the look ahead to 1 block and then things should go smoothly. In theory.

G103 turns the look ahead back on.

Hope this helps!

Stock models can be somewhat moody at times.

Things I will try:

-Delete the stock model and create a default new stock model instead of copying one and changing the settings. Sometimes this magically makes things work.

-Look for thin sections of stock (<.001 thick)  with weird triangle layout. This can make it go whacky depending on your tolerance settings.

-Sometimes you can remove toolpaths from a stock model to figure out which one is giving you troubles.

-Ram Saver to clean the Database

-Toolpaths using tools with Custom Profiles will make the stock models take wayyyyy longer...

-Select less toolpaths per stock model and use more stock models. Lots of "lighter" weight stock models seem to help with stability.

Good Luck!

Wait....you all get paid...?!?!?

I thought this was all just for the fun of it...

Might be an option in the tool axis control that says "Point to Rotary Center"

This should help with the y axis jitter you are seeing

18 hours ago, Tkrohn45 said:

I am not the person to make changes, but i am someone who can suggest change and see where it goes. The boss is looking for ways to become more productive.

The boss is always "looking" at ways to become more productive but it takes more than "looking" to totally rewrite the culture of a shop.

Ask him how committed he is to making things "better." Ask him how much money he is wiling to spend to make things "better."

A few cleverly worded questions can sus out how serious they are about change. This 5 minute conversation can save you alot of headache and wasted time.

Its all too common to get someone like yourself who is striving to make everything and everyone better, only to be smashed down by management who don't fully support the direction you want to take things. They will give you alot of surface level fluff but when the time comes to commit to change they back down like panzies.

Good luck. Lots of great ideas in this thread!

9 hours ago, Matthew Hajicek - Singularity said:

Not sure the top end, but he wasn't squirming at the talk of a $550K machine.

IMHO I would do everything you can to get into a higher end machine with automation. ROI comes pretty fast when you are running 20 hrs a day making perfect parts.

How much $$$$ in the budget?

Seems like a Kern/Erowa combo would be killer for that kinda work....

3 hours ago, alexlikesyou said:

Thermal throttling is definitely the biggest issue with the laptop.  The convenience of being able to undock it and wander over to the engineering building or to some place on the floor (the shop here is massive.  like a 5+ minute walk to some machines from my office) which makes having a laptop nice.  The Xeon in it overclocks to 4.8 ghz but it can't hold that for a long time under full load.  It turns into the surface of the sun.  My rig at home, which I have watercooled, processes things much faster even at a slightly lower clock speed just because it can maintain it.

Super Powerful Desktop in the office then use remote desktop on a lower end laptop. Best of both worlds.

You are doing this on a laptop?

There is your first problem. Look in the benchmark thread at the latest builds and copy those. Max out the ram. Overclock the ram and CPU. I bet it will cut down calc times in half IMHO....

Then do tool path calculation comparison on your laptop vs the new workstation and show the management the time difference.

I bet good money that you will have approval for unlimited workstations at that  point! Make sure to get a bigger desk as well.

Good luck!

58 minutes ago, Roger said:

IMHO, I think ever machinist out there should start with manual machining before getting into CNC's...

You hit on a good point here. How will the AI learn to manual machine? Maybe this is why it has failed so far?

Silly computer engineers all you need do is teach the AI to file, hacksaw, weld, and manual machine and it should be able to take it from there....

Haha they have it all backwards. We don't need AI to replace us lowly programmers/AE's.......

We need to MERGE with it to create a race of super programmers so that our AI selves can replace all of those middle and upper management, as well as all of the workers on the floor with robots connected to our AI selves so WE ALONE control the manufacturing of the world....MUHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

Cant help with this particular problem but geeze if I got this response from the sales guy I might just cancel my order:

5 hours ago, So not a Guru said:

The salesman said their technical support is too busy to answer our questions on how to integrate MC with the machine, so I'm writing an email with our questions, that he'll forward to them and they'll answer "when they have a free minute, here and there".

That right there is a big red flag to me.

Hope you figure it out!

Here you go Ron. You can fill it out and hang it on your wall so next time you can point to it and say you have the most valuable degree of all:

the .tooldb files are SQL-Lite DB files.

You can use

https://sqlitebrowser.org/

to browse the files.

Most likely will have to go a net-hook/C-hook route to accomplish what you are after.

How many holders are the wrong item number?

1? throw it away? Use it as a tool that will not get broken down so there is no confusion in the future

or

Use both of the item numbers as so "C40-16ER2*****\C40-16ER262 37339" in the ToolDB

Probably have to write a custom net-hook to do this properly and get the data for mated as you like.

What data schema do you need?

--

Or you could do a custom post and format the tool table how you need?

HTH!