Anybody running or familiar with Toyoda Mills that would like to give me there opinions? We are are specifically looking at a 5-axis UX570. I know nothing about these machines or this builder except what I see on the internets???

Thanks. It is all low volume moderate tolerance parts and the customer is supplying the material.

Anybody cutting this stuff? I have the product specs and I am confident we can machine it. I am more curious about any experience with tool wear, abrasiveness of the chips and/or dust. We do have dust collection on the machine that would run these parts but it is the best machine on the floor and I would hate to subject it to any unnecessary abuse.

Looking for suggestions on quality small to mid-size vibratory deburr equipment and media for small aluminum parts. Our current equipment and ceramic media does great on larger parts. However we really struggle with small aluminum parts. A good example is we machine a 2" diameter dual drive sprocket out of 2024 Aluminum. Lots of teeth and pretty small. With our current vibratory we either get media stuck in the part or miss most of the surfaces. Any input on what you use would be greatly appreciated.

One million hours sounds about right

I am trying to pull up the hours on our Okuma LB15 control (OSP5020L). Does anybody know what parameter page these timers exist on? I have it on our Okuma Mills just can not find it on the lathe control?

We use Visual Enterprise from Infor. Startup and Maintenance costs are pretty steep. We ended up dropping maintenance and living without updates. I do like the software however.

How many people are using Wiper inserts in facemills to improve surface finish in steels and/or stainless? Is there an appreciable difference? We run mostly Mitsubishi but have never bothered with wiper inserts.

We use MS Sales in Renton, WA. Great to work with and can usually get whatever we need.

Sweet. Great find. Thanks.

So thanks to some help from Hardmill I think it has to be a parameter setting at the machine (Fanuc 18i-TB). The code from mastercam is good. The link below shows a video of the problem. Watch at around 36s. The tool is in the cut when this happens. It looks like parameters 1006 and 1008 might be the key but as far as I can tell the bit settings look correct.

I have a program on my Doosan Mill/Turn that is doing some extensive C-axis milling. The problem is every time the C-axis code changes from positive to negative (ex C1.32 to C-.604) the C-axis is making a very abrupt, almost rapid, 180 degree rotation. So essentially the C-axis is taking the long way around to get to location. Any ideas on how to fix this. The program will not run as-is. TIA.

So we are testing some Qualichem XTREMECUT coolant and so far everybody seems to really like it. Anybody else using this coolant. Pros or Cons?

I was also at this seminar yesterday (should have introduced myself) and this is very impressive software. It is at the right price point that most smaller shops can handle it and I can see immediate time savings with the type of work we are currently doing. Nice presentation by MCAM Northwest and Spaceclaim. Thanks guys.

After re-reading my post, I left out some important details. I am familiar with the way Renishaw does things. We had a laser on one of our other machines and their macros worked great. This machine is a Doosan MX2500 with an automatic presetter arm (contact). It does not look like it is renishaw. I cannot find much documentation and Doosan is telling my AE that broken tool detection is not possible. I guess it just does not make much sense to me that a multi-tasking machine would not have these capabilities.

I have a job coming up that could really benefit from Broken tool detection. I would like to write a macro to accomplish this however this would be my first macro attempt and I have no idea where to start. Would anybody be willing to share a macro sample and/or point me in the right direction.

If you can give me the block sizes I will run it through our jet software and get you a run time for both thicknesses. It really depends on the edge quality you require. Blocks that thick will have some taper on the edges from the jet wash unless you have a multi axis waterjet head to compensate.

Great stuff. I feel a little better that some of the practices mentioned we already have in place. I have considered doing Kaizen type time studies of our setups.

Tool setting is one place where we are lacking. We are constantly tearing down and setting up tooling. I am setting up standard tooling that stays in the machine so that should help some but we are limited (25 tools). A pre-setter would be nice. Do you have a single employee who is in charge of pre-setting and staging jobs to the machines?

If you could name one thing that has improved your machine setup times over anything else, What would it be? If our company has one continuous struggle it is reasonable machine setup times. We have made improvements over the last five years but are still not where we think we should be to be competitive. We run small lots (10 - 100pcs). in a job shop environment with no real automation (pallet changers, robotic loaders, etc..) So we are almost always setting up at least one machine. (We only have 5 NC's) The owner is very willing to make the necessary investments if the ROI can be proven. Just curious what others have done to make positive strides in setup times.

So we bought a used Doosan Mill / Turn machine late last year and things have gone pretty well so far. Now we are looking for someone who can come in and help make us better. This is a new realm for our company and for me as a programmer. We are making some pretty trick parts on this machine but to watch some of them run is painful. I know there are features of this machine we are not using or using incorrectly. Can anybody (Apps Guy) recommend a Doosan AE on the west coast that might be able to help us move forward?

For now it is the only way I have to check tool/chuck clearance. This is a multi-tasking machine with a lot going on so some kind of clearance check is important.

Yep. Back to X5 for lathe work for now. MU1 where are you???

I am trying to define a lathe chuck using a chain in X6 and I am getting a (Toolpath allocation exceeded) error when I pick the chained geometry. This is the exact setup I have in X5 and it works fine. Any ideas?

Is it possible to advance and retract the tailstock on an Okuma LB15 without turning the spindle off? We are advancing and retracting with M-codes. We have a 6000 piece run and we need to eliminate the additional cycle time and extra wear on the machine. I have found a M157 m-code that I thought would fix this but I am getting an alarm. Any Ideas???