What is the current price of carbide?  I am sitting on about 150 lbs of carbide end mills right now.  Just haven't got around to sending them in.

"150 lbs"

Last I heard, it was going for $5.50/lb

The last time we actually sent some back, it was $14.30/lb

We've been holding off for a while.

Last I used Melin, many moons ago, they were average run of the mill endmills.....nothing high performance at the time just a standard grind endmill....as I remember, their early claim to fame was extended legnth cutting tools....

 

Haven't really seen one in a tool crib for years

I've got a few shattered roughing endmills sitting in my tool crib. Waiting for the price of scrap carbide to go back up.

 iguess

Funny stuff right there.

It's your thread, lay it on us.

 

okuma lathe shop thinking going makino vertical seems la bit unexpected.

Seems like the M560 has the best performance package with the price listed on website. Or is this just the best marketing?

Dealer support is the main reason. If I were to make another thread, it would be called, "How You Know When Your Support Techs Are #$(&(*#*)&@)(*^)heads." Our Doosan guys might not have shiny new vans, but they get the job done quick and they get it done right, sometimes same day service. That makes all the difference in long term viability, especially in this world of JIT manufacturing.

Why not stick with Okuma? The Genos M560 vmc's are pretty damn good.

Big plus, 15k, 30hp, 1,200ipm feed,gantry,Hi-cut pro, etc..

Various reasons that would require another thread.

So far I've gathered that these are pretty good machines! Is anybody running them in a 3+2 configuration with full 5th axis? If so, what brand trunnion/rotary are you using and how easy is the interface?

I work for an Okuma distributor so my opinion is slightly biased. That being said I prefer Okuma because of the control, however Makino would be my second choice for sure. Beyond that I if I didn't need any fancy control stuff and just wanted a good workhorse of a horizontal I would consider OKK. Working for a distributor I get into a lot of shops and hear a lot of people's opinions. Makino's are are almost always spoken highly of. 

I love Okumas--we have 11 Okuma lathes, 3 multi-task machines, and 1 HMC. But we've always kept the vertical department separate (with the exception of the HMC) and ran Daewoo (pre-Doosan) machines. They've been rock solid and now one of our oldest is giving us fits. The company we use for sales/support doesn't distribute Doosan anymore, so we have to broaden our horizons. We are a job shop so we need a machine that can do everything from high precision aerospace parts down to drilling a hole with .060 tolerance.

Good machines and made very well. The lower quality models made to compete with HAAS I don't like very much, but if you are going with a FMS or anything like that you should be very happy with that choice.

What ones do you consider lower quality? While I'd love to have the top of-the-line with all the bells and whistles, it's not realistic for what we do. I'm just starting out on investigating these machines so any info you can give would help tremendously.

Come one, come all, give me everything you've got on Makino's. Repeatability, quality, longevity, serviceability, support, you name it, I want it. Bring it!

Does Renishaw own Zeiss or is owned by them? If not, why would Renishaw make a product that "can only be" accurate with another manufacturers probe tips?

We use Renishaw probe tips, and I have zero complaints about them, except that they should replace them for free when a fart-knockin' night shift rookie snaps one off. Seems reasonable.

Certain windows will not be able to be viewed fully, if the minimum resolution can not be met. I have a small laptop I use for email and simple programming, for when I don't want to lug my larger programming laptop. Docking it solves the issue, but when non docked its annoying. 

The Surface may have a "small" screen when compared to a laptop, but the resolution is massive. Resolution is DPI, not just size. However, things would be pretty small. I use my Surface to RDP into my work computer and everything fits just fine, although the text is small. If you have Mastercam on a capable desktop or "main" computer, using RDP on your surface is a great method because it still uses the main computer for all the chugging and basically serves as a remote screen. 

<<<<<<QA guy. Just moved in two weeks ago. Woooooo

That is exactly what I was looking for and confirms my suspicion that the gage is unusable. The tolerance opened up so technically the gage could still pass parts but it could also reject parts that are actually good. 

Thanks!

I've stumbled upon an old thread gage, a 3/4-16 NF-2. NF was the precursor to UNF; unfortunately I cannot find anything that still lists the old threadforms (pitch dia, major/minor, etc) for the NF thread so I can compare it to the UNF standard. I want to see if this thread gage would still be usable or if it needs to be retired. 

Does anybody know where I can find these old dimensions, or can tell me what the differences are, if any? Thanks in advance. 

Nice update man, thanks!

Try putting a G116 before the initial tool call. That code runs an internal macro that checks whether the tool called up is in the spindle or not. It will change if it is not, and will skip if it is. So, if your first tool is T1, you should have a line like this in the header:

G116 T1

You can modify your post to draw the initial tool in the header and use that code instead of an M6

EDIT: G116 works on our machines which the earliest control is a P100. If it doesn't work on yours you might try what Allan just posted ^^

Pictures? Sure! So far it looks like this:

Software is ordered, cabinets are ordered, machines are moved. Actual construction begins next week.

I don't know what the budget allows but check out the Iscar multimaster tools. They run great in my experience and something like you're describing is exactly where I've used them.

That's what I was planning on using. We have one with a massive solid carbide shank extender. I know how expensive they are because five years ago I was deep hole milling in aluminum and it got caught in a harmonic vibration and snapped it before I could even crap my pants. That's probably the way I'm headed, I was just looking for some other options.

I need to put a flat-bottom bore into a part. The bore is 1.40" in diameter, 11.00" deep in 304 stainless, and needs to be a 63 micro. This will be done on a Multus.

Any ideas?

Right now I'm thinking, rough drill with an indexable inserted drill, and then finish by doing a helix bore with a long indexable tip endmill. I can imagine the cycle time on that is going to be extreme and keeping the surface finish will be a struggle.

Can EDM do things like that? I have to be honest, I have no idea what the capabilites of EDM are.

Thanks in advance.

You'll need to create a proper axis combination in your MD to have it set right. What kind of machine are you working on?

For my twin spindle / twin turret lathes there are four axis combinations: upper left, upper right, lower left, lower right. "Upper/lower" is the turret, and "left/right" is the working spindle.

On our non-millturn machines, I ended up accomplishing POCO by using a macro/subprogram on the machine. Then I would use "stock transfer" in the misc. operations, and had my post pull parameters from that op to populate the macro. I had cutoff speeds/feeds set to a default, but could override it using a misc value when needed. Part length, cutoff length, and grip point were pulled from the op, the rest was handled by the macro. 

I wish I could still do this on our MIll/Turn machines. 

I've been using Mastercam on and off for many years now. (since around v5). I thought this stuff was amazing once I had learned enough to start making chips.  As my machining experience and programming started to growI was offered a job as Cnc trainer for McDonnel Douglas Canada. These guys had MC but did the majority of the work with Catia. This was my first exposure to it and at first it seemed quite daunting as all new software does. After a while I was comfortable and very capable with Catia. MDCAN would keep MC up to date for the few that used it. I began to see all that was lacking in MC compared to the abilities of Catia. Their  mill, lathe and mill/turn were miles ahead of MC at that time and still today with V5-6-2015.  From MDCAN I was offered a similar position at Bombardier in Montreal. There Catia and UGS-NX were the the big guns. When I asked about MC I was told  that it had been quickly eliminated as a needed tool. I was told that this software that I had loved so much in my early years was completely inadequate for this type of work. I began to dabble with NX7.5 which had just been released. It had a similar workflow to catia but a much better layout in general. Things were right there these things were as powerful as Catia. Over the years I knew this was the ultimate stuff. This software  made using MC like playing space invaders on Atari in a play station world. I now operate my own CNC consulting and programming service. I get to trot the globe and see a range of industry that today still blows my mind. Some of the new machines in use run themselves. 20-40 MT machines that only need a couple of people to keep an eye on things. A team of programmers to keep up with the demand for the products. Mastercam does not belong here. I've seen nothing spectacular come out of this software in the last 12 years. Really the turning side has been stagnant since v9, mill/turn looks to be totally useless in the real world where workarounds just become too time consuming. I've had the chance to use some less expensive stuff like Camworks. You know what, for a price that's about a third of MC, this stuff is pretty good. Leaps ahead of MC in turning and MT. I currently have it in my arsenal along with solidworks and NX. Come on CNC Software get you crap together before your just known as CAM.

Cool story, bro.

FYI-- we've decided to go with Zoller for our tool management software. We're breaking ground on the new tool crib after the new year and hopefully should have it built a month or so after that. Then comes the organizing, inventorying, and implementation.

Without multiaxis, I've done that using axis substitution. You define the area you want to machine on a 2D plane and toolpath it like normal, and then use axis sub in the toolpath parameter and it wraps around the part.

With multiaxis, there are a few options to choose from.

Impressive!

 

 

How do you prove your code before you post it?

Maybe we should wait until he actually answers; but my assumption is that by "posting" it, you're giving it to the machine to run. That's the terminology I use here when talking to operators. *I* can post it from Mastercam, and run it through simulators and check it out, but never realease it to the floor; so to the operators the program has not been posted yet.

If you don't have, or cannot use that function for some reason, a "poor mans" option to smooth out the motion is to go into your arc filter page, and set the Smoothing settings to "Use Fixed Segment Length" of .020 or so. This will smooth it out, at the expense of a very, very long program.

The answer is that you should explain what you are asserting.

He's implying that if you are posting unproven code, you are potentially in violation of ISO and AS standards; however there is a huge difference in tiers and what what doesn't fly in AS can be acceptable in ISO, particularly depending on what certification you have.

It's a huge can of worms that in no way helps answer your original question.