ahhh...the crash vids....I believe this is the one where the sparks fly...

Too bad Mcam is so far behind....at MANY places hand edits are a no no....making this a deal breaker. The big time cheat to get around the no-hand edit, "post & go" would be to post out your curve 5ax, hand edit, manual entry, ect. Very cheesy at best. Soon I see Mcam with this functionality, albeit many years too late.

http://www.lakeshorecarbide.com/ Great stuff & easy to work with

Cobalt would not be on my list for any HSM. Looking at your part tho, I would look into using a high feed cutter, like a mitsubishi AJX style. With the smaller step downs that these style of tools use you will be closer to final shape when it comes to finishing.

When are you changing your drilling axis? I am guessing that you are always drilling in "Z"...to do otherwise would be VERY unusual (changing to a right angle head during a cycle would be next to impossible). Your code looks good.

Those look to be Kennametal holders (widia/ericson = kennametal) and they are pretty good. The kennametal guy says they have 20% more holding power than a milling chuck...take that with a grain of salt....it was a kennametal guy who said it. When used with a reduction sleeve they offer MORE holding power than without....a 1" holder has much more pressure than a 1/2" holder, so when you use a sleeve you get the pressure of the 1" holder on the 1/2" shank. All of that being said, I have pulled tools out of them. Then again, I have pulled tools out of heat shrink, milling chucks, collets, ect. I will say they will outperform a TG100 without blinking. Also to hold an insert drill in one of these would be WAY overkill. Typically insert drills are forgiving on things like runout....and that is one area where hydraulic holders shine....very good runout.

cimitron....bobcad....hell you guys had it easy. As recently as last year I used Compact IIe to do some grammin. who needs a fvcking GUI?

With Verisurf you can also pick which features you want....I didnt know there was a way to "select all"

^^^ +100

what are you naming the programs running on pallets A & B? I have had the best luck running subs on the 840 Di's (which is kinda sorta what you are doing with the M70.....it calls up whatever program you told it to) by keeping the names simple. So instead of a descriptive name like "Pallet_A.MPF" and "Pallet_B.MPF" try something simple....like old school fanuc as in O1000.MPF for pallet A and O2000.MPF for pallet B.

To me this would be bringing me back to my old high school days when we actually had a shaper. The old school guy taught me the formula "CS*7/length of stroke" = your feedrate....or how fast the shaper moves into the material. Just in case that did not come out right.....that would be SFPM times 7 divided by your length of cut. That being said that was 1987 & I am sure PH horn has more up-to-date data. One would think "point" toolpath might come in very handy for what you are trying to do.

Lol....now that is funny

FWIW...Aaron has a pretty slick system for backing these things up and restoring if/when they get corrupted. It is still in use at my old employeer's place.

http://www.pmtnow.com/end_mills/tools/KT-R.asp looks like the ticket.....

smcamerror : "ERROR H and D do not match" if t$ <> tlngno$| t$ <> ( tloffno$ + 30 ), #Note the plus 30 result = mprint(smcamerror, 1) exitpost$ That is basically what I have in my old posts [edit]....fixxed my code comment

Actually for this situation, it would be tldia$ = t$ that being said...it is bullsh1t that you have to force the post to do things that are specifically called out to do via the machine definition. Why have a machine def if it does not do what you tell it to do? (there is a SPECIFIC section where you can tell it to add ZERO or 30 or whatever to the tool number for a dia offset....Does not work AT ALL if you go from one type of machine to another) Post tricks are not a fix....yet another workaround.

Forgive me if I am wrong.....didn't you change to Gibbs?

Now that is sig worthy.................

Now that vid is a very good example of what this is all about. Imagine that part being part of a weldment that had 3 of those in a pattern. No way to realistically turn the feature. You could generate the geometry with some custom tooling on a "conventional" machine....but this is a much more elegant & cost effective solution. At my new gig they have been using this to just do smaller diameters (all ID work, with very long length to dia ratio's....single point boring bars are far superior to a multi-flute form tool in this case) I am pushing to use this for more applications...we will see how that goes.

This is where we use it....it would be a nightmare to try to fixture these parts on a lathe....plus then you are adding operations. I have yet to see any other mfg out there (specifically Fanuc powered machines) offer this. Maybe some potential for future development.

Just recently got exposed to this....The product line I am working on makes alot of use of this function. Great idea...tho it has limitations (RPM being the main one). I know that other companies have a "U" axis or interface with a "U" axis device (downside to the device route is if you have to have multiple size bars=multiple heads=$$$). I some cases on our products we have eliminated 5 seperate custom tools & sped up the process because of this ability. Are any of Okuma's competitors doing something similar? Check about 30 seconds in the vid to get an idea of what it is

If CNC is not constantly monitoring this forum for threads like this then they are complete MORONS for ignoring the most valuable resource they have for getting feedback from their user base. In fact, I can't believe they are not reading....doesn't this site also host the beta forum???? Or are they blind to us mere non-testers?

You can do what you are asking using "change at point" very effectively. Unfortunately it is not a very well documented tool & you have to play for a bit to get things to work the way you want. Basically you make a path....then go into the change at point interface...you can specify different RPM's, feedrate, dwells, ect for any point that is on your path. You have the option for doing it just at one point, or for the whole chain. (with some tweaking it can be a crazy powerful tool) Someone please correct me if I am mistaken....you cannot "change at point" on a lead in/lead out move. It has to be a point on the actual chain you picked. then you also have the option of creating 2 paths & then using the toolpath editor to keep the tool down between the 2 paths.

Benchmark Carbide does make a 5 flute specifically for alum.....tho I would only use it to finish. Never tried it myself.....I found running with 3 flutes at 1200IPM was fast enough.

What controller is on it? If you are using a Renishaw probe then there is a 99% chance that they have their own macro's to drive the probe & do what you are asking. It has been my experience with a couple of different machine tool builders that choose to write their own macro's (specifically Okuma's & Toshiba's) that while their macro's will get the job done, the Renishaw ones work with a lot less hassle and are better documented and supported.