I think putting a shop close to your house is a bad idea that will come back to haunt you when it comes time to sell your property. I cannot imagine a situation that would be legal to have an industrial business in operation close to housing. Truck traffic, heavy equipment moving, power requirements, potentially hazardous materials, etc. In my opinion, you would be far better off to lease a pre-existing commercial unit and build from there. From a taxation perspective, this may also be a better situation. Your home owners insurance may also be affected by having your shop on a residence. Anyways, that doesn't answer your question. Foundations with perimeter isolation is a must. Epoxy floor with painted walls and ceiling. This makes a huge difference in regards to the amount of lighting required to illuminate the shop. Mount airlines and electrical outlets along outside walls and to columns. Overhead crane separate compressor room ( for noise and heat generation ) Drive in and loading dock The list goes on and on and on. Good luck with your future expansion. Carmen

Bob, We have Blum A2 lasers on our V56 and F5 Makino's and measure tools right down to .2mm ( .008" ) holding .0001" accuracy every day. We use a "plunge style" tool setter on the PS95's and S56 and also hold tenths with no issue either. Keep in mind that a proper warm-up is essential and once the spindle becomes "heat-soaked" growth will be minimal. The temperature controls on the V56 and F5 are obviously far superior to that of the other Makino's, but I am surprised you are having difficulty. Our shop is environmentally controlled which also helps and the machines all have proper foundations for maximum stability. When I took my Die-Mold training at Makino 10 years ago, they explained that in order to achieve proper blending, you need to run the spindle at its programmed rpm for ten minutes, then touch the tool off the laser and begin cutting. This is especially important when going from a tool that operates at low rpm ( low spindle heat generation ) vs a tool that runs at high sustained rpm ( high spindle heat generation ). Our higher end Makino's came set-up from the factory to check tool length before, and after, each cutting cycle when you execute a tool change. You could modify the tool change program to add a timed dwell to allow the spindle temperature to stabilize before measuring tools. Keep in mind that when you try to achieve high levels of accuracy like this, it comes at a huge time penalty in regards to production. Do you want it right, or do you want it fast? Two totally different approaches. Carmen

All of our Makino's have Blum lasers and we run a calibration cycle with a stylus a couple of times a year. We never see more than a tenth or two deviation on tools. I've never used Renishaw, however, I suspect their process would be the same. Check with your Renishaw dealer for help. Carmen

A few ideas come to mind. Rotate the vice 90 degrees and use the end slots to clamp, or, make a small sub-plate that the vice can be bolted to and then counterbore the sub-plate so that the machine screws do not interfere with your set-up, or, we have an electromagnet permanently mounted to the table that the vice can be placed on and then the magnet activated. Its a little high, but still, very strong. Carmen

If you are using a touch off probe that only gets you to .001 or .002", then you either have a very poor quality machine, or a very badly calibrated probe. Try using an inexpensive tool setter and I'm sure you could get accuracy to less than .0005", unless, you are using a Haas, in which case, there is no cure. Carmen

Ya, I've heard those Fadals really stink.

Yeah right. We get it welded all the time, except, you lose the hardness in the process. If you ever need to get some welded, just shoot me a PM and I'll send you in the right direction. Carmen

D'Andrea is what we use.

Putting a small offset on your drill will go a long ways to prevent seizing. We cut tons of BeCu. Coolant thru drill work very good, but must be sharp. Carmen

My explanation was a layman's explanation, but I disagree that it "has nothing to do with material". One of the main functions of the pencil tool path is to calculate the "remaining material" leftover from previous operation/s so that Mastercam can calculate multiple passes. When you adjust the bitangentcy angle, you also affect the tool path based on the calculated "remaining material". We are both right, but two different ways to explain it.

Bitangentcy is the maximum acute angle where the software still looks for material. If you draw two line at a 90 degree angle and put a fillet of say .125" between them, you will clearly see the "remaining material". Now if you draw another two lines where the angle between them is say 120 degrees and fillet them with the same .125" rad, you will see much less "remaining material. As this included angle increases to 180 degrees ( a straight line ), the fillet gets smaller and smaller. Once you get to roughly 170 degrees, the remaining fillet would be "almost" zero. Basically, by setting the bitangentcy angle, you are telling Mastercam to ignore the small amount of leftover material. I think 170 degrees is default, but you can set it to whatever you like. I think an appropriate value would be between 160 and 170 degrees. Carmen

A few screen shots of your settings might help some of us guide you. What machine and material are you cutting? Carmen

We have been using Extreme cut 231 for many years on our CNC mils and lathes with great success. We also use Extreme grind in all of our surface grinding machines. Carmen

I owned and operated Okuma verticals for the better part of 20 years. Absolute brute workhorses and legendary reliability. The number of service calls required over that time period could be counted on one hand. Great machines. Carmen

Hmmm, I'm surprised there would be two different "standards" depending on your global location. 3D machining has been very successful, but it really shines on the 2D high-speed tool paths. Downright scary fast. With twin screws feeding a conveyor for chip evacuation, I can't imagine any swarf problems. We certainly haven't had any.

We've got an F5 in our line-up of Makino's and it has been a great machine. We went with the 30K spindle and had Makino design and build a 4th axis for it ( Koma ). It has been a stellar performer for us. Carmen

In your opening statement, you posted an error. The Makino is actually a 14K spindle. I know nothing about the Doosan, however, we do have two of the Makino PS95's. They are an awesome machine in every aspect. Bullet fast, super accurate, standard features include 440 psi through spindle coolant, super user friendly and a great control ( not as powerful as our higher model Makino's, but still awesome ). I would buy one in a heartbeat. As far as where the machine is assembled, in my opinion, totally irrelevant. We have a 10 year old Makino S56 which is run every day and it has never had a service call. Freakin' unbelievable machine. It was basically replaced by the new PS95 model for the most part. Both machines are assembled in Singapore. Carmen

A VM3 only has a 50 block look-ahead ( to the best of my memory ), so if you tighten the tolerance, the machine will eat up code faster than the machine can execute, which will cause jerky movement and decreased feedrates. Setting 85 ( tolerance control ) will also have an effect on the accuracy as well as performance. G187 allows you to adjust the tolerance within the nc program. Carmen

What version of Mastercam are you using? The c-hook has been free for many years in current releases.

You can use the raster to vector c-hook in Mastercam. It will take a few tries and is a bit rough, but it might jet you what you are looking for. The better the quality the jpeg file, the better the results. Carmen

The more things change ................. the more they stay the same. Carmen

Go to the start menu / Mastercam 6 / applette / and then you can reactivate the smoothing function. Carmen

I thought MU1 was supposed to be released by now. Any updates? Carmen

Touching the screen during operation will have no effect on the machine anyways. It will only change display pages. If data is entered, that is another story.

Not that I am aware of. Why would anyone be allowed to touch anything on a tour? Are they not supervised? Carmen