I agree with James 100% on writing the settings down in a "safe" place. It has saved me many hours of grief when I "lost" the settings in the machine (or switched computers).

I would further suggest a good quality UPS for the computer. It will do wonders for conducted (induced) EMI problems. Part of the problem is that arc welders also generate tremendous amounts of RFI emissions (broadband radio-frequency noise). I have had microwave links (telephone/data) drop out because an arc welder was being used in line-of-site of the antenna, about 1000 feet away. Good grounding and shielding practices on all of the equipment is critical to knock the conducted emissions down far enough to reduce interference with your computer. Since you are having problems that are this intense, I would suggest that an electrician review/inspect/revise the grounding system for all of the equipment. It sounds like you may be dealing with an improperly installed (or missing) ground. The ground may also be high-impedance (generally you want a ground resistance less than 0.01 ohm). A single, simple ground rod may not supply an adequate ground potential, dependant on your location and the soil conditions. Some locations (such as on Guam) require an elaborate ground "well". [ 10-25-2002, 07:49 PM: Message edited by: MetalMarvels ]

Pictures? I wish! Especially of the guy who got 4 stitches in his right eyebrow because he walked into the outside corner of the wall (his attention had for some reason wandered) - then he had to "explain" it to his wife.

This happened in a textile mill in Virginia while I was a supervisor. A funny thing happened on the way - through the factory floor to my office. We had a rather statuesque blond who liked to wear rather loose and frilly shirts around the thread-making equipment. She had been told several times not to do that - loose clothing + rotating and reciprocating equipment = bad news. That afternoon, her shirt got snatched right off of her. The women's locker room was at the other end of the plant and it seems that she did not take to wearing the usual female underpinnings (a bra that is). Rather than attempting to "hide", she calmly walked the length of the factory to the locker room. I had to do 3 lost-time accident reports on male employees before she made it to the locker room! She did wear more appropriate clothing after that.

I am also using semi-gorilla tightened ER-16 Lyndex collet chucks for rigid-tapping on a FADAL. The only problem that I have had to date was trying to form-tap an M10 hole in K-100 aluminum tooling plate. The tap stopped (seized) and the collet and holder spun off in the retract. I could not back the tap out by hand (it finally shattered and I had to use the chemical TapOut). The lesson was NEVER form-tap tooling plate (it will seize even if hand-tapping using a form tap). Just one of those "hard way" lessons. The cut-tap worked fine. I have rigid-tapped in excess of 8,000 form-tapped 0-80 holes in one continuous run in 360 brass without breaking a tap. One of the keys was to "start" the tap about 0.1 inches above the actual surface. Starting the tap cycle at the actual surface height resulted in a broken tap every time (could just be a Fadal thing! I have the same problem with all three Fadal mills).

YIKES!! Punch tape - talk about "hanging chad" issues when your puncher doesn't quite remove the little circles somewhere in the middle of the strip..................... I keep an old tape around to show to a younger guy when he complains about how slow 56K is.

Congrats to both of you! Fatherhood has been a growing experience and I would not have wanted to miss it (well most of it - I could have done without the 1:00 am - 3:00 am - 5:00 am parts ). Next year I will have 2 in college and 1 in high school.

quote: Just keep measuring until it gives you the number that you want! The sad part is that you CAN do exactly this...... [ 09-17-2002, 05:43 PM: Message edited by: MetalMarvels ]

We had a similar problem with our Starrett CMM. One of the temporary "fixes" was to do a multiple-hit measurement of the arc (eg. more than 5 points along the arcs). The permanent fix in our case was a new software load that used a different algorithm to calculate the arc fit, coupled with 5 or more measurement points. As I understand the explaination from Starrett, all CMMs are subject to this type of error. The major differences between various CMMs are how the software compensates for it, with some algorithms being "better" at compensating than others. The Starrett rep indicated that the problem was particularly noticeable when at the limits of the measurement capability (5 decimal places or greater). One difficulty is that with fairly shallow arcs of less than 90 degrees, there is a strong coupling between the "measured" arc diameter and the "uncertainty" of the exact position of the "hit" along the arc. If you measure several more points than the minimum required 3 points, the uncertainty is averaged out and the "measured" arc diameter is closer to the actual diameter. Another issue with almost all CMMs is that the touch probe is MOST accurate when taking measurements in the plane of CMM movement (X or Y or Z) and is LEAST accurate when taking measurements at an angle to the X, Y, Z planes of movement (eg. 45 degrees from the X/Y/Z planes). This is due entirely to the way probes are constructed. Most CMMs compensate for this error (more or less successfully). You can easily demonstrate the problem by taking a diameter of 5-inches or larger and performing several 3-point measurements. Do an overall diameter measurement using 0/90/180 degree touch points around the diameter; a second overall diameter measurement using 45/135/225 degree touch points; and a third measurement all along an arc less than 90 degrees total. You will be surprised (dismayed) at the resulting "measured" diameters. How close all three are will tell you how well your software compensates! Originally our Starrett had "measured" diameter differences in excess of 0.00035 inches for the same component (we had a part tolerance of +/- 0.0002). The same test run now will yield differences of less than 0.00004. IMHO this is probably one reason why a lot of folks are looking towards non-contact measurements as a "cure" for this problem. As an aside, two difference operators can come up with radically different measurements due to differences in technique.............. Sorry for the epistle, but we went through this while trying to measure that 2 tenths part (on a 5.5000-inch diameter). Cheers

Kitagawa is the only way to go in my admittedly limited book...... We switched to one on our Mori at my day job - great chuck.

quote: OUCH!! Its amazing how far an 1-1/2" inserted endmill will throw a piece of stock; isn't it..? Really makes you DUCK also - not to mention the nasty dent in the sheet metal......... [ 09-10-2002, 12:05 PM: Message edited by: MetalMarvels ]

We were directed to 3R and are getting about $30K worth of tooling in a wide variety of formats since we never know what is next (essentially a prototype shop captive to the Air Force). I believe that the consumables supplier will probably end up being EDM Supply. The contracts folks are trying to meet their small business goals witht the resin cylinders .... will have to see on that one. Thanks for the reply - particularly the website!

Oh yeah... and that other time I forgot to tighten the vise (BUT I thought YOU did it....). Never hand off until AFTER the setup is done.................

I would like to pick the collective brains in this forum. It looks like we might be getting a new Mitsubishi FA20 wire EDM in the shop. Part of our purchase process is the creation of a Statement OF Work (SOW) - a Gov't contract - gotta do the paperwork. We have written into the SOW a requirement for a fully tweaked out post processor to use with MasterCam Wire and 40 hours of basic training for all in the shop. We also included an additional 40 hours of advanced training to be done in the future. We are also requiring the successful production of one of our more challenging parts prior to sign-off on the equipment. Since in the shop we have about 5 hours of playing with EDMs in terms of experience (which means NONE), are there any of those "lessons learned" about getting a wire EDM unit setup and operating with Mastercam that a total EDM neophyte could avoid the learning curve on? Beyond the obvious things like don't drop the slugs on the head........ We are purchasing the Mastercam Wire upgrade/post and the equipment from the same supplier - so we have ONE vendor to deal with. Thanks

While I still cringe when blowing a machine-gun stream of chips off of a block, I am beginning to learn that in general I can take a cut that is only limited by the machine or the workholding - almost never by the tool (except in smaller sizes). In my case, the machine is almost always the limiting factor - I either run into not enough feed, or not enough RPM (some days a 10K spindle just doesn't make it). Currently, I am machining at rates 4 to 10 times what I was 6 months ago. I rarely break a tool 1/2 inch and larger (well except that one time when the the machine went home in XY BEFORE Z - still haven't figured that one out). Bottom line, I mostly can't get to the speeds and feeds the tooling is really capable of. But I still have a lot of respect for that rather explosive stream of chips coming off the part........ Regards

Just downloaded my XP SP1 update - smooth update with no problems noted so far....

BerTau, Stripping the lines numbers from the posted code, shipping it to the FADAL and letting the control do the numbering does appear to work.... It appears to be an interaction with a short list of numbered lines (non-program lines) followed by starting the numbering over at the "Main" program and the canned cycles. Oddly enough, it seems to need at least 5 comment lines before the initialization block to do the trick (with 3 canned cycles of course). Four or fewer numbered comment lines between the "O-word" and the initialization block won't do it (on the 4020 at work anyways). Jack, quote: sort of like an M98 P050 L1 within a current program.We let it cycle for awhile and after about 90+ cycles (actually 99 cycles - but we sort of lost track) of the 1st tool, it dropped to the next canned cycle and then finished the program!!!!! One for the books for certain.

SLJ... That appears to be exactly the problem, but in our case it only caused a problem when your program started out with at least 3 canned drill cycles in a row. With only 1 or 2 canned cycles then nothing or a different type of op before or after the problem did not occur. In all cases, the 4020 control would number the header comments. As you said... truly weird.

By the way, Keith... NEAT garage toy there... can you get it up to 60 MPH before you exit the garage!!!!

Jack, I will give those last code snippets a try this evening. quote: It’s all part of learning – for those suffering with G94, your already used to it; break out those TI-36X solars. I already have 3 of the TI calculators spread around the garage (2 at the computer and 1 at the machine). The unfortunate part is that I need them............... Chris, thanks for the kind words - it was definitely a head scratcher for me.

FINALLY GOT IT!!!!!!!!! When the code comments (all the header junk) are posted, they do not have "N-words" assigned to them out of the post processor. When the code (with unnumbered comments) is transmitted to the FADAL, the controller adds N-words to the unnumbered comments (for example N1 thru N13) THEN the program starts AGAIN at N1 (as posted). With three or more canned cycles as the program, the 4020 control appears to interpret the 2nd (N1....Nx) numbered set of codes as a subroutine that it repeats..... If I pre-number the comments sequentially with the following code it all works. If I delete the un-numbered comments before tranmitting it or delete them after the control assigned new N1...Nx to them, it all works. This only occurs with the 1996 vintage FADAL 4020, my 2000 vintage 3016L ignores the comments (except to display them) and does not attempt to assign N-words to them. All in all, a truly bizarre thing. The permanent fix is that I will be forcing the assignment of N-words to the comment lines in the post processor. Weird, No???? As an aside, I have noted that with the FADAL controller, if you have duplicate N-words (too many lines for the available number of N-words) and then start in mid-program AFTER the roll-over of N-words, it will not work properly (you end up at the 1st instance of the N-word rather than where you wanted to be). This has caused me to add memory to the FADAL and change the N-word step size to "2" and the length to 5 places. Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

OK, latest results...... I tried all of the suggestions and they all work just fine (when you only post 1 or 2 drill cycles). In addition, I could not repeat the problem today. Yesterday I could do it at will, today....NOT. I went back to the ORIGINAL posted code: a centerdrill, drill, tap ... problem reappears and centerdrill endlessly repeats(whew - I wasn't imagining it). Took the same file and only posted the 1st 2 tools... problem gone (WHAT???). Post all three .. problem back. I can reproduce the issue again at will. I have now tried various mixtures of drill cycles - the only time it "breaks" is with 3 canned drill cycles in a row with no other toolpaths preceding the drill cycles (stick a contour 1st and it all works). When running the "broken" code it never processes the 1st drill cycle cancel (G80) and loops thru the 1st drill cycle forever. This ONLY happens when at least 3 canned drill cycles are posted sequentially and NO other op preceeds the drill cycles. I am now proceeding thru the suggested fixes in a controlled fashion to determine what will "fix" the "broken" code. I think that I am starting to get a handle on this and I will keep you posted. [ 09-05-2002, 02:49 PM: Message edited by: MetalMarvels ]

quote: Experience will be your guide, feel for the volume of material that you are going to remove and think in terms of the energy it will require to liberate it from the workpiece. Be the cutter, Feel the power, and become one with the machine... I would only add, in my case "... and remember, that $75 mill comes out of YOUR pocket." LOL [ 09-05-2002, 01:33 PM: Message edited by: MetalMarvels ]

Chris, Actually I have the 3016L in the garage - the 4020 would not quite fit. The z-height would require that I cut a 2x3 hole in the floor of my daughter's room. For some strange reason she strongly objected to the head of my mill z-ing up thru her floor. Just no reasoning with teenagers!

Guys, I have 5 different code scenarios in the stack, but SOMEONE wanted to do real work... I just can't understand why REAL work should get in the way of the search for knowledge. I hope to get control of the machine this afternoon to run the test cases. So far there is no clear-cut cause of the "endless drill cycle". I will keep all informed of the results.......... [ 09-05-2002, 01:34 PM: Message edited by: MetalMarvels ]