My free ME Consultant program has a real nice weight/volume calculator included: http://dl.winsite.com/bin/downl?14500000037133 I also have a demo of a more powerful weight/volume calculator, one which allows you to build assemblies, define cavities, and print a report. http://dl.winsite.com/bin/downl?19500000038152

majariley, I wrote a free program that, among other things, calculates and illustrates the relationships between speed, feed, horsepower, etc. It has a user guide which defines a lot of terminology in terms that a machinist can understand. Several of the guys here have looked at the program, maybe it would be useful to you. The calculated speeds and feeds are based on averages of data found in a bunch of different tooling catalogs, the Machining Data Handbook, and my own experience. http://dl.winsite.com/bin/downl?14500000037133

The funny thing is, Henry Ford was doing "Lean" back in the twenties.

There's more to it than just how long it lasts. Heavy-duty can mean more rigid, which translates to higher material removal rate, better part quality (or at least fewer problems maintaining part quality), and longer tool life over the entire period of ownership.

We bought a couple of G&L's some years back. The 630 ram-style horizontal was a turkey from day one. It was never reliable and, thankfully, is now someone else's boat anchor. The GL2300 is still making chips after nine years, but has cost a hundred grand in repairs over the past eighteen months. The control makes a Fanuc seem totally brain dead. In both cases, G&L service has been lacking, to the point that they weren't even considered when planning our next machine purchase (anybody have opinions about Niigata?).

I had a Dell Inspiron 8100 for close to two years. Performance was fine initially, but when I tried to get it fixed under warranty (LCD, AC adapter, video card all gradually died over a six month period), I went through a customer service nightmare. Took a month and three Airborne shipments before it was fixed. Had to make at least a dozen long, often-repetitive phone calls to India. Confusion is the rule. Check out their customer care forum for some idea of what people routinely go through: http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/bo...d.id=cc_general Replaced it with a Toshiba, which I've used for six months with no problems. It feels MUCH sturdier than the Dell, which flexed noticeably when I picked it up. If you go with the Satellite series, they're no more expensive than the rest, from what I've seen. Mine is an A45-S150 P4-2.4, 512MB, 15" (1024 x 768) LCD, DVD player and 60 gig hard drive - cost $1200 at Best Buy. The graphics are something of a limiting factor (Intel Xtreme - built in and not upgradeable). Lots of good laptops out there. They'll all break sooner or later, and are expensive to fix. I highly recommend an extended warranty.

If you do the numbers, that figures to 1042 surface feet per minute at .004 inches per flute (.012 inches per rev). Power figures to be about 5.5 HP. So, it really is in the ball park for a modern, high-performance carbide drill in aluminum. Make sure you have no more than a few tenths runout at the drill tip, or you're inviting it to break.

Popups are gone.

James, I had a friend who got similar numbers some years back turning jet engine components. He was using some of the early "whisker-reinforced" stuff from Greenleaf (sp?). It's hard to believe until you really see it. On the other end of the scale, I've seen 50" waspaloy rings being turned with C2 carbide, with the spindle literally barely turning and programmed insert indexes every half hour or so (LONG cycle times). Stuff like this makes our kind of work interesting.

See what you mean. Just went to my own website from my work computer (IE). Got hit with six popups plus it triggered the corporate internet censor - nailed me for going to a gambling site. Guess I've got some work to do

Sorry about the crap at the website. Free has its pluses and minuses. SlimBrowser is a free tabbed browser that runs on top of IE. Has a popup stopper and all kinds of other nice features. I've used it for a couple of years and really like it. www.flashpeak.com

Hey guys, The thanks are much appreciated. I hope the program helps you do your jobs. Mike

I don't know anything about Catia, but this forum showed up in Google and appears to be active: http://www.catiav5forum.de/

quote: Are you following me? Yeah. You got a problem with that?

quote: Mrainey don't I know you from somewhere Hardmill, I recognize your name too. CNCMasters? CNCGurus? CNCZone? Anyway, good to meet you again.

Hi, I'm a new guy here. Have been a CNC programmer/ME since 1980, still love it. I've written some free software that should be very useful to many CNC programmers. It's a major-league machining calculator (speeds, feeds, machining times, HP, etc.), plus drill depth calculator, drill chart, hardness comparison, center drill chart, weight calculator, surface finish calculator (turning), and thread database (192 threads). Inch and metric, very interactive. One of the old hands here was nice enough to mention it and post it on the FTP site. Thought I'd add my two cents. The file is called MEConsultant.zip Screenshot at http://bellsouthpwp.net/r/s/rsnmar/MEConsultant20.jpg Michael Rainey