Do they make them for small sizes like 4-40? Also can they burn out blind holes.

Do any of you guys use those EDM style tap extractors, or burners for getting out taps? The ones I am talking about are like small table top machines. I am wondering if they work well and if there are any brands to get or not to get. I have a few Titanium parts that have been thrown to the side every now and again, and they might be salvageable if I can get the taps out clean. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Shawn

Thanks guys for the replies, and MMT-USA I sent you an email so you can tell what Matsuura offers!!

Me as well Ron!! LoL.. But seriously that would be pretty informative. So if you dont mind!

Thanks alot guys. I figure the Mori or Matsuura should have it as an option then..

Ok cool! So it doesn’t have to do with the cam software. Thanks guys, that makes more sense. The only other question that I have would be do all machines offer this as an add on or do only certain controls deal with this? Thanks again..

We are looking at getting into 5ax machining, and are looking at machines (Matsura,Mori). I have herd not to get one that doesn’t have dynamic tool comp. I did a search for this but I am still confused as to what this means. I thought initially it had to do with MC or your cam software. If you guys could give me some insight to what this is that would be very helpful. Thanks, Shawn...

I found that the Duramill Whisper cuts gave better life than the Hanita Veri-mills in certain applications on titanium.

Does he still make you block your material square, or can you use a carrier? Just kidding, but good luck with all that nonsense.

I would get a good tap/drill chart like you said. This would include FORM taps aswell as STI tap sizes and a chart with KEENCERT sizes. You may not need them, but in our work they are used all the time.

Hey CNCMIKE! I had that same question myself, and quickly found out that I definitely want to buy a seat of Solidworks. I have only used MC for my modeling, but I think it would be worth it to me to learn solid works, just for the assy and boms you can do in it. I would say you’re on the write track; stick with solid works and learn to tool path on MC. I would like to throw something out though. If you bring models in and you need to add certain geo to drive the toolpathes, it might be beneficial to learn how to do some things in MC so you don’t have to export import all the time. I would like to know what other people on this board do when they have this scenario as well.

THX!

The SS machines use the same encoder on the X,Y axis drive motors as they do with there non SS machines. The only difference is the pitch of the ball screw. On the SS machines if you were to take a tenth indicator and zero it out on a face, then move it to another known dimension face in the same direction, you can easily get a .0008 or more deviation depending on were the encoder tells the ball screw to stop. Same goes for the backlash.

Oh and nice purchase!

Oh and dont forget to ask the five WHY's... LoL!!

Dragracer what HMC did you end up going with if you dont mind me asking?

Dragracer Sounds like your a man that nows what you want!! I agree that number is good. As far as the ISO thing goes, that is a long process, but it has helped are shop tremendously!

Crazy I think you misunderstood me. I agree with what you’re saying for the most part, but he isn’t bringing in 2mil to 20mil at the moment. I think 100k is NOT enough for a job like that, but all I was stating was don’t do it all in a salary. Over here we have profit sharing every month if there’s profit, and everyone is on a different percentage of that profit compared to there skills. When it’s banging the highest experienced people get paid VERY well, but when it’s slow you still get a reasonable salary. I myself thinks this method works very well if it’s set up correctly. You could have a contract if you wanted for what percent of profit you get. Now if that guy was setting this company up so it starts bringing in 20mil than by all means bump his salary up, but for a shop making 900k to 3mil I would play it a little safe if I was the owner UNLESS you had a contract for the work. This doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t give out 100k plus, but do it in profit sharing. I will give you an example of why this might be a better way or maybe not. LoL!! If I was an owner and all my money was from profits that the shop made, and I am buying a big dollar machine with all the tools to set it up, it may be kind of tight for a while. I would then bring someone in to get it all set up, and when that guy starts to make it all work, and the money starts poring in then re evaluate his bonus or salary. Now if I myself was the guy coming in and I new I was worth over 100k, and he offered me a smaller salary with a potentially big bonus I would be ok with that. The last thing I would want is the pressure of my boss trying to pay me a huge salary when the business is struggling. I would look at as that if I believed in this company than I would give the owner the respect to pay me when I have showed him my skills, and the owner would respect me because I believed in him and it just wasn’t about the money. I think it would make a great partner ship in the long run. Not trying to argue with you Crazy, just giving a different side of thinking that’s all.. Dragracer If you are willing to give out a salary like that, then like Crazy has stated I respect you for it. No matter what you end up doing good luck and I think who ever you get will be a lucky man to be able to grow with a relatively small company like your.

Oh yes the HAAS argument!!! This was a good thread to say the least. I will give my opinion as well since everyone else has chimed in. First off if you are a job shop just staring then the HAAS will make you LOTS of money. Now if you’re a production shop or going to be a production shop then you need to venture away from those machines. At our shop we started with the infamous lunar lander!! LoL!! After 14 years we now have 11 HAAS machines no bigger than VF3’s, and there all VMC. We do mainly Semi Conductor work, that had tolerances under +/-.0005 all the time. With that being said we learned how to use these machines to the best of there abilities. We always have had are machines in a climate controlled environment to keep the machine fluctuation down as much as possible. You learn how to work around there faults. There are a few thing we stuck too early on, and that was to never by a LATHE or HMC from HAAS. When you need to cut tenths all day on a lathe we new Haas wasn’t going to cut it. We also felt that if your going to buy a HMC then it better be something that was very accurate and fast, because that’s what they are made for. We have had are share of problems with HAAS VMC but it has not been anything to complain about because of the money we have made from them, EXCEPT we made the mistake of buying 2 of the SS models with the 12k spindle. First of we have had problems with the spindles, and the X,Y accuracy is way off. Easily .0008 of TIR from location to location.(not good!!) We have had the best luck with our 10k spindles. It’s kind of funny that when we need something that has a tight true position, we will put it on the lunar lander. That machine was built better than they are now. Its table was even ground instead of milled.. I think the Haas is best placed in a young shop that has a lot of different jobs with a tight budget. It makes it easy to by 3 mills for the price of one good one. When you’re trying to bust out different jobs all at the same time its beneficial to have three machines with three operators getting the products out on time. That way of thinking secured those jobs witch intern made us tons of money. Without are HAAS machines we would have never come so far, and for that I give HAAS my respect. If it wasn’t for those machines we wouldn’t have been able to buy our Hatachi, Mori, and Nak machines. But like others have stated there time has past for us and we will only buy Jap machines from this point forward. So hale to HAAS and now I hope I can welcome my new baby soon, Matsuura’s 63V.. LoL!!!

There is only one thing to do!! Steel them from another company.. LoL!!! But seriously 100k salary is too much for a small shop like yours. I don’t think it’s too much if they can do all those things, but right of the bat handing out a salary like that you may shoot yourself in the foot. What I would do is keep the salary at a level that when you’re slow the overhead won’t kill you. But when it’s going like gang busters offer a percentage of profit sharing to your people. Give a guy 80k to start, then if he performs well bonus him the other 20k if you want. That way it gives him incentive plus when you’re doing well you all benefit. Let say you make 2mil in sales that year, and let’s just say you do a 30% profit, give him a bonus of 3-5% percent profit sharing which is about 18k to 30k. If he does really well give him more if you want. The last thing you need is to be paying a guy more than your taking in when you’re slow. But when you’re busy you compensate him very well. I think this keeps everyone on the same boat so to speak and makes a great relationship from a relativley young booming company when you all share the hard times and the good times.

Well its good to here you can mix and match with no problems to speak of. Although I could see what MIC said, it could maybe happen as well. I was some what worried about all the money adding up in tooling. Whoops scratch that, my boss was worried!! LoL!! Anyway could anyone tell me around about how much Vericut is?

Good point!! I wasnt sure how it actually works, but now I understand. Thanks

Thanks again for all your replies, all this info helps a lot. I am glad to here that MC can perform well on 5-AXIS programming. I didn’t doubt its capability, but its kind of discouraging to here other’s put it down. I myself have to much invested in MC to change, and after what you guys have stated there is no reason I should ever stray. I only have so much time in my life to start over and learn new things. LoL!!!! It looks like Matsuura ships mainly the Fanuc control as there default. I can wait half a year to get a 840DI. They have machines in stock ready to ship with the Fanuc control, so I don’t see us special ordering a machine with the other controller. I talked to our seller and the majority of machines sold have the Fanuc control, and a 12k spindle with 800psi thru coolant. I think this will probably be fine for us. If we end up getting one it will be a 2 pallet capable of adding on a pallet pool. It will have the probing and laser detection as well. CNC APPS GUY, MIC, JMC,CRAZY M,WINNIE POO, MULTI GOD!! Do you guys run all big plus holder or a mix? Also on the Camplete can that be used to verify our NL3000 Y Mori Seiki lathe? If not what could be used to verify live tooling lathes? Once again thanks for all the input on holders, and everything else it’s greatly appreciated. I may sound a little uneducated on this topic, and that’s because I am but it’s a big investment for us so I want to get it right. Shawn…

Thanks for the feed back guys… We have a few machines that run @ 12K . The materials that I can think of are like 304 SST, and inconel. I myself am leaning towards a 12k spindle just for the horsepower reason.

Hey guys! I have been a member here for a long time, but haven’t posted much. I have been given the opportunity to do what ever it takes to get us up to date on machining efficiencies. I am now throwing myself into the world of 5-axis programming. We want to purchase a 5-axis machine and are leaning towards a Matsuura MAM72-63V. Now I have a few questions to ask if I could. 1st .. Has anyone used one of these machines and or herd anything about them? I am looking for some feedback as well as other brand recommendations. 2nd.. There is an option for a 20k spindle 25hp, 108.5Nm/1,320 min verses the standard 12k spindle 30hp, 183.7 Nm/1,120min. What would you guys or have you guys preferred in the 5-axis field? I am afraid if we go with the 20k it may hinder us in harder metals that a lot of aerospace parts are made from. 3rd.. I here people say MC isn’t as good as other CAM software when it comes to 5-axis. I don’t do any 5-axis work as of yet but from what I have seen it looks like it has a pretty good selection of tool paths. I am not going to jump ship or anything but are there any pros and cons that are a huge difference than other CAM packages? 4th.. Methods gives us a ready to run post, and verify simulation software with this machine. Does anyone know if its any good or not? 5th.. Last question!! This will have a big plus spindle on it (registers of taper and back face). What is a good brand of balanceable holders that you could recommend? I could figure this out on my own, but was wondering what the majority use. Feel free to answer any or all question. I look forward to your input, and if we end up buying this machine I am sure my post count is going to get pretty huge!! LoL!! Thanks, Shawn…