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Forklift capacity thoughts on moving VMC. Nissan F05? Rated vs "just get it up"

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I realize the math and pitfalls of fork capacities, load centers, etc. However, we are having trouble renting the size we really need so may end up with some tricky lifting. The VMC is older but that does not mean anything goes. Just not new where 100K is on the line.

VMC weighs about 16.5K and pretty well verified. The actual load center of mass is a total crap shoot though. the fork lift I am looking at is already under capacity. Dealer says 16K but all the stuff I find online say "7000kg" which is 15,400, NOT 16K. So that leaves 1K on a prayer assuming we can get back to a 24" load center.

I know the main vertical casting is at the very back of the machine and that is my best bet. I also had the thought to manually turn the screws and get the table to the back of the machine to help. All I really need to do is get the machine down off the trailer and we can skate or do whatever at that point. I also have some other double lifting options but I would much prefer to use one machine.

The plan is just to lift, then move trailer and lower. Done it many times without issue with older forks but I understand the newer ones might just screw me on this.

I know that if a machine is rated at 16K, that does not mean it will tip at 16,200. They have to be reasonably safe to drive at 16K. I don't even want to drive, just lift. Light rears don;t concern me. I have been known to add a little counter too when needed but again, if the machine tilt system or other sensors will not allow this operation, I might be highly disappointed with my rental. Again, I am not looking to lift 25K with my 5K fork here. Nothing on that machine is going to break with this load without driving with the load.

What's your favourite way to make small accurate holes on the lathe

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Hi All:
The title says it all; I have an RFQ for a bunch of parts with holes 0.79 mm, 0.84 mm, 0.85 mm, 1.90 mm, 1.95 mm and 1.96 mm; all of them deep (10 diameters or more), and all of them with reasonably tight tolerances for diameter and concentricity (typically +/- 0.01 mm).
Materials are (fortunately) all easy to cut: 360 brass, 303 stainless and 12L14.
Some are blind, some are through holes, some are stepped, some are straight.

I've been pondering how to do this without splashing out for carbide micro reamers; I can buy from Magafor for about $50.00 per reamer, but this is going to get expensive very quickly; especially since I need quite a few sizes, they are quite fragile and I expect to break a few.
So my question is; what do you prefer to use?
Any magic bullets out there?

HSS vs carbide?
Drills and prayers vs drills and reamers?
Honing, lapping?
Wire or sinker EDM in a separate operation?
Something I haven't thought of?

If you have a particular kind of tool you're partial to and are willing to share, I'd be really grateful to hear your views.
Thanks in advance.
Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix – Design & Innovation - home
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining

Work piece blanks

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Howdy all,

We, the company I work for, are implementing the use of Raptor dovetail work holding fixtures: Raptor Workholding Products -- Dovetail workholding fixtures for 5-axis and paletized CNC machining

I am certain that I saw in a trade rag an advertisement for a company that sells work pieces with the dovetail precut and the block sizes and materials to customer specs, but I cannot remember the name nor find the ad.
Any help or direction is always appreciated.

Joe

Thread mill program cutting only one side of the hole

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Newbie machinist here. I'm cutting a 11/32"-36 internal thread into Delrin, 0.319" diameter hole 0.3" deep. The problem I'm having is the hole is only cutting threads on the -X side of the hole; the +X side of the hole is not touched. I'm using a single form thread mill from Maritool with a cutting diameter of 0.240". The tool is exactly centered on the hole at the end of line 7, below, so the tool is where it needs to be when the tool is fed into the hole at the start.

I'm guessing the spreadsheet creator is making some assumption that is incorrect for my machine, but I've not been able to figure it out, thus asking here.

The code was generated by the "Single Profile Thread Mill Assist Program" found at Thread Mill Assist Program using settings:

Major diameter: 0.34375"
Cutter diameter: 0.240"
Pitch: 36
Full Thd Depth: 0.290"
SFM: 600
Feed per tooth: 0.0001 (intentionally set low so I could watch it cut)
Flutes: 4

Code:

%
O00000001
G90
G20
G54
G00 X0 Y0 F18.0 S9550 M03
G00 Z0
G01 G91 Z-0.29694 F50.0
G01 G41 X0.0259 Y0.0259 D1
G03 X-0.259 Y0.0259 Z0.00347 I-0.0259 J0 F1.15
G03 X0 Y0 Z0.02778 I0 J-0.0519 F1.15
G03 X0 Y0 Z0.02778 I0 J-0.0519 F1.15
G03 X0 Y0 Z0.02778 I0 J-0.0519 F1.15
G03 X0 Y0 Z0.02778 I0 J-0.0519 F1.15
G03 X0 Y0 Z0.02778 I0 J-0.0519 F1.15
G03 X0 Y0 Z0.02778 I0 J-0.0519 F1.15
G03 X0 Y0 Z0.02778 I0 J-0.0519 F1.15
G03 X0 Y0 Z0.02778 I0 J-0.0519 F1.15
G03 X0 Y0 Z0.02778 I0 J-0.0519 F1.15
G03 X0 Y0 Z0.02778 I0 J-0.0519 F1.15
G03 X-0.0259 Y-0.0259 Z0.00347 I0 J0.0259 F2.31
G01 G40 X0.0259 Y-0.0259 F50.0
G90
M05
M02
%

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong here?

Thanks!

Short Double Station Vises

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I am looking for some short (length 4-6" wide) double station vises. I need the overall length to be 14" or less.

I am looking at the Kurt HDM6 vises but don't like the height overall or the depth you can mill into the jaws.

Chick is limited to the 4" that will fit in the OAL I need.

Besides Kurt and Chick are there any others out there I am not thinking of?

I want to setup 2-3 pallets on the new machine with 4 double station vises, and be able to drop fixture plates onto these if I want which the Kurt and Chick vises I can.


Thanks.

Milltronics lathe help - software limt not allowing turning past chuck jaws

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We have a new Milltronics ML22 (8200 cnc control) that's giving us problems with software limits - programming support is not available on the weekend and I'd like to finish this job today. Machine is not allowing turning past the front of the chuck jaws - software limit relative to home position. i.e. independent of G54 G53 etc. etc. Anybody know how to change this?

Anyone ever added live tooling to a 2 axis lathe? DIY or MTB add-on? C axis?

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We have a small 6" 2 axis that we just love but always need live tooling for something. It could free up another machine. I am willing to sacrifice some power and rigidity to just leave the machine and let it run.

I am NOT looking to swap the turret or anything radical but I have full access to the back of the tool block and got me thinking.

Machine has an 0-T/C control with the right encoders and such. I am not sure if the C axis would be a parameter change or a complete redo of the electrics? I know they kind of made this control universal and the MTB just plugged the parameters to make it whatever so I am hopeful. I would try to get away without a C axis brake.

What I had in mind was some type of electric spindle motor mounted to the soild X axis gear box unit (can't remember name), and create a plunger type system like many have to engage a live.

Does this sound like too much hassle? She runs sweet as glass, paid for, and solid as a rock. Just need more functionality out of it.

reach around tooling? - Turning

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I have a part, and need to perform some operations on the side of the part which is parted off, does anyone make any tools that will do this, or will i need custom tooling?

it is a V shape about 0.150 deep and and 0.2 wide. Need it to be a boring tool if possible.

Cnc handbook / reference material recommendation

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Does any one have any good book you can recommend? Looking for something with cycles and basic to advanced stuff. Either a physical book or a PDF or cheat sheet to put by the machines. I have a g and m code list by the machines that comes in very handy as an awesome learning tool. Just looking for something a bit more in depth now. Thanks!

Guess the ratio of machining centers equipped with linear encoders vs rotary only ?

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In the world.... all of them... For axis positioning and repeatability...I guess less than ten percent have linear scale feedback and ninety percent rely on rotary encoder feedback only. What is your impression ?

Visiting a hundred or more plants during auction travels the only CNC non grinding chip making machines I recall encountering with linear scale feedback were the gantry style Mazaks and Deckel or Maho mills, but maybe there were others where I didn't notice the scales.

In other words, based on personal experience I've seen maybe one percent with linear scales but I'm bumping up my guess to ten percent on the theory I probably missed some or am forgetting about some. A good example of what I've seen but wasn't paying close attention to are newer Mazaks... like turn/mill centers made 2005 or newer. Do those have linear scales, for example ?

HURCO VM1 problem...Please help/advise.

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I turned on my VM1 today and set it to run the warm up cycle. All seemed fine until the spindle started to make an unusual sound and then the machine went into a spindle error probably 10 or 20 seconds later. I did the servo reset and it then wouldn't properly orient the spindle for tool change. I shut it down and powered back up and it now changes tools fine, but won't go over 5000rpm and doesn't sound right when up there.

Spindle drive? Spindle encoder? those are my guesses. Has anyone with one of these machines run into this problem? The machine is a 2005 model.


I would also like to know if anybody in the New Hampshire/Massachusetts area has anybody they'd recommend as an independent repair tech. I'd like to avoid the dealer prices if possible. I'm just a one man shop running part time so any extra expense that I can avoid would be great.

Any help or insight is appreciated.

Thank you,

-Sean

Passing arguments, and returning values from a sub program.

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I know a few other programming languages aside from G-Code, in all of them I have the ability to define a function or method that takes arguments, and returns something. Say I have 3 points, and I want to calculate the circumcircle of the three points, in most languages I could pass the three points (as points) into a function/method, the method would then do all of the math and return the circumcircle. So far as I know, calling a sub program in G-Code is approximately like using a function or method in other languages, but I don't know of anyway to encapsulate my data. I could have the main program set global variables in a location the sub program can find, but thats very bad stylistically as it could lead to those variables being read into places they shouldn't. I work with many different controllers, so this is not a machine specific concept I'd like to understand.

In pseudo code Id like to do something like this

CALL O1423 XA2.3 YA3.2 XB1.7 YB1.3 XC.75 YC4.3;

Then inside of O1423 I would do all of the calculations and RETURN 3 values, one for the X and Y location of the center of the circumcircle, and one for the radius. I'd like things to be a bit more dynamic, but dynamic is not what the language was built for.

Any Ideas?

Takisawa TCN-203j

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Aside from the sales brochure, anyone have any experience and/or opinions on this lathe? I'm looking to do mostly aluminum work in the 3-5" diameter range, although some work outside that range would come up. I'm mostly asking about reliability of the machine and ease of use of the Fanuc control. And what about rigidity, could this thing turn 3" diameter workpieces in steel? Is 8 stations on the tool turret enough?

I've had a really positive experience with Yamazen since I bought my Brother TC-S2Dn and I'm interested in the Takisawa for that reason. I am troubled to find that there is even less info online about takisawa lathes than there are about Brother mills.


Cheers,
Matt

TS27R Probe cost on Hurco?

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We are getting ready to pull the trigger on two Hurco VM-30's and these have just the ts27r tool probe. Looking at the quote they want to charge 42,000 RMB (USD 6,931) per unit! Have they gone up this much in 5 years? Seems way high to me.

Barfeeding 3-1/2' Steel

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We would like to barfeed 3-1/2 inch round steel (four foot bars) in a 20 horsepower CNC lathe. Is anyone out there successfully doing this? It is an almost new Mazak with a 10 inch chuck.

Coolant in hydraulic tank

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We noticed that our hydraulic tank had overflowed a few weeks back, when I opened the drain nut coolant came out, we thought it must have came though the spindle, and down with the oil returning from operating the hydraulic chuck cylinder. We then made a plug from nylon so no coolant could get up the spindle. So far this has worked for chucking jobs that don't require any thing to move through the spindle, if I need to bar pull or do any shaft work, I will have to remove the plug and the problem may return. Any ideas how I could stop this or what would you recommend the machine is a Hitachi cnc lathe cheers paul

What is the best way to cut scale?

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I have a job coming up where I will need to cut 4x Ø1.250" 0.062" Deep. This material is plate with a thick scale. In the past when I did these parts I would chip the corners off of the roughing tool on every part.

Does anyone have any tips on this?

Lathe turret tool block - source

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Afternoon,

I'm wondering if anybody knows of sources for boring holder blocks for Pragati turret. BTH 1" 1 1/2" I need 3

Thanks

Best parting tool insert for 6061T6

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Have a part we are getting ready to put into production that we would like to do complete in one operation, part off and be done. Mostly the parts we do must have a second op so they just get whacked off and finish has never been a concern.

What do you recommend?

Machine is a Mazak SQT15M

CNC machine delivery in the cold

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We all love the exciting day getting a new machine. However, with the recent SE WI cold of -15F, I'm a bit worried. Anyone with any bad experiences or troubles related to the cold? I know to let it come to temp for a few days before power up for condensation. What about the electronics being bounced on the truck for 4K miles at 15 below?

It is here but not being brought in until tomorrow because no one wants to work in this cold. It will be above zero tomorrow.

I read other "new machine day" threads, so not to keep anyone in suspense, it is a Hwacheon 7050 VMC. 30" x 60"; 50 taper, Two 90 degree heads and a rotary table, Fanuc Oi MD.
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