If you disable the "plunge parameters", this should prevent your other tools cutting the undercut areas. If it is a basic undercut, you can create the undercuts with a "point tool path". You just need to create a point at the vertex of the undercut, then in the tool path, give it a start point, plunge point, then a retract point and you are done. Carmen

Haas' stink no matter what you do to them.

It sounds like you could use the contour toolpath and add the angle on the depth cuts page, otherwise, waterline should work just fine as long as you define your tool properly.Carmen

To the best of my knowledge, the geometry must be flat ( at the same z-level ). Carmen

No, the magnetic field is very small. With electromagnetic chucks, you "activate" the poles with a surge of electricity and once activated, will remain activated. We have many of these chucks and they work very well for the application listed above. We machine mild steel "pucks" that screw onto the chuck, then you can face the pucks off for a perfectly flat surface, or, you can pocket the pucks or install dowels to locate parts. As mentioned, chips can be a problem, it just depends how close the machining is being done to the chuck. Carmen

OSG Hitachi

Can you enlighten us with the answer? How were the accuracies?

Hmmmm, I haven't had a crash in months. You might want to look at your video card drivers or other computer related items. Carmen

I believe you are correct regarding the M252. I program and run our other Makino's that have a better control. Our V56, S56, and F5 all use M252. I believe our PS95's do not. What does the Makino like? Lots of code. Generate your toolpaths at a very fine tolerance, and if you want the ultimate speed and accuracy, remove arc filtering. Creating arcs in a high-speed toolpath requires the processor in the control to "think". Generating strictly linear code allows the machine to utilize all its processing power to control surface accuracy and accel/decel. A strictly linear g-code file will be huge by comparison, but trust me, it works. This is the method that Makino teaches at their die-mold classes. Carmen

The Makino uses an M-code to control surface finish. M250 is standard accuracy, M251 is high performance mode, and M252 is ultra accuracy mode. Using M250 as the benchmark, M251 is roughly 30% faster, and M252 roughly 30% slower. This of course depends on the complexity of the geometry. There are also a few tricks you can employ in posted code to make the Makino rip. Carmen

When you send them in, how much do you get per pound? Carmen

Most of our Makino's have .00001" resolution. Only the S56 has .0001" Our Mikron's are .00001" also. Carmen

Contour-ramp. Two chains ( inner circle & outer circle ) No lead-in or lead-out. We do it this way all the time. Carmen

No it hasn't.

Check out Walter Titex drills. They have some that work awesome for your application where you only use flood coolant. Carmen

Yes. The same way that gap settings work on the legacy toolpaths. In the HST toolpaths, on the cut parameters tab, you simply modify the "keep tool down within" value to a larger number. It all depends on which toolpath you are using, but increasing this value will keep the tool supressed to the next cut. Carmen

................ they already do. Ya just gotta know how to do it.

Increase your gap setting and you will be golden. Carmen

Titex has some drills that do not require through coolant, flood coolant will work just fine. Hole sizing should also not be a problem.

Glenn, please don't tell me you spent 13 years coming up with this answer, as the thread is dated from 2001. Good answer though. Carmen

I would get another quote for the foundation. I just put in two foundations last summer ( one for a Makino and another for a Mikron ). Each foundation was roughly 10 feet x 10 feet, 16 inch thickness, two levels of rebar, perimeter isolation, saw cutting, excavation, removal, clean-up, etc and the total bill was just under $10,000. Your quote for $60K seems a little out of whack, unless the square footage is massive. Carmen

And now maybe some of you understand why I was being a bit of a xxxx towards this guy. Carmen

I think once you do your due diligence, you will find that this number will grow exponentially. When I built my 16000 square foot shop, the contractor costs were staggering. Just an overhead crane can easily eclipse $100K with proper engineering, footings, inspections, etc. Electrical work can get downright nuts. If you do go forward with your shop, you mentioned a couple of things that I would give you a little advice on, based purely on experience. Do not put in skylights. As romantic as they sound, they are nothing but a pain in the xxxx. Leaky roof, computer screen glare like crazy, but the most damning effect is when the sun shines on one of your CNC machines. Accuracy will take a hit for sure. We ended up painting the underside of our skylights for all the reasons listed above. Another thing you mentioned was doors that you could open for "fresh air". In short …… don't do it. In contrast, you want to insulate and seal your building as good as possible. Again, if you have high accuracy machines ( which I know you do ), and you have intentions of adding CMM capabilities, then temperature control is going to be your single biggest concern. Your heating and cooling costs will be significant. Again, speaking from experience. The shop I work in now is 26000 square feet, and we just finished our custom build, and we did it right, and are reaping the rewards for doing it right. Carmen

Our company uses a Brown & Sharp running PC-DMIS software. Although I personally don't use it, it seems to due the job, and everything we do is one or 2 tenths. Carmen

I've used those air spindles many, many years ago on an Okuma I had that only had 4000 rpm. The air spindle gave me 25000 rpm, but I suffered the same issues you are describing. I'm not sure there is a solution because there would be no temperature control on an air spindle. The best you could hope for is to run it at speed and let it stabilize via thermal growth, and then touch it off. I made the assumption you were using the Makino spindle and that is why I was surprised with your issue.