Hurco Aquires Milltronics and Takumi

gregormarwick said:

The only controls I've ever used that don't tell you at some point before it happens are Fanuc.

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Yeah - my 1983 Acramatic 900 wouldn't start a move that it knew it couldn't finish.




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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Ox said:

Any Milltronics unit that I have ever seen looked awfully light weight to me.
Think Snow Eh!
Ox

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Ox,
My '96, Partner 6 VMC was definitely lighter in the loafers than my VMX, for sure!

SeymourDumore said:

Like what "manufacturing" exactly?
If by that they mean Takumi's operation to the US, I might let the Hurco rep send me a sales brochure at some point.
"til then he can keep flying his kite.

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Seymour,

I believe he meant moving the Milltronics machines, manufacturing to Indy. (If I understood him correctly)

Doug.

QUOTE=RTM;2588413]The alternative is a control that will happily ram into the limit switch, even when it should "know" that move exceeds the travel of the machine. I've never understood machines that won't at least throw a warning in graphics that the moves will exceed the travels, using the given offsets.[/QUOTE]



That is only an alterantive if you do not proof read your programs. Machines have Limit Switches so you DON'T ram into anything.

gregormarwick said:

The only controls I've ever used that don't tell you at some point before it happens are Fanuc.

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Gotta love those. They come with detailed manuals too. Great for a little ligth readign once you learn how to decode them. Glad I learned on FANUC. I would be lost trying to use the anemic HAAS manual for anything more than the most basic stuff.

hurtzmyhead said:

Born and raised in a Haas only job shop, and I am curious as to why you would want too. If the program exceeds the work coordinates, then it will not run and you will end up with an axis over alarm on any machine. I have frequently used that "feature" to see if a program will be able to run a particularly large mold that was near the limits of the machine.

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Why would you not want to? Are you confusing work coordiates with machine home coordiantes? Still shouldn't matter. When you want to know if a large mold will fit. Do you set G54 at an extreme axis travel and then work from there? Why would you not physically check how much travel you have in the machine? As in move until you hit a limit switch and set 0 then move the opposite direction until you hit that limit and look at the number? That will tell you right then if you can run it or not. Has nothing to do with graphics at all.



So you are ok with a control that you physically have to move the work coodinate location on to see the graphics for a part that is well within the capabilities of the machine travels if you have them set anywhere that the moves in the program exceed? I'm not talking about a part that is grossly oversized. I'm talking a
30" long part being run on a 64" X travel machine and will not run graphics until you set G54 at a location that the machine recognizes as with in the limits. I don't set machines up and then write programs usually. Why do you?

I find the need to set my work coordinates before wacthing graphics ridiculous. If you are relying on graphics to prove your program rather than single blocking through your first piece and reading the program as you run it. You are inviting a crash. Graphics do not show you rapid moves,Z moves (on most)or a myraid of other things that can be wrong. Graphics are simply a tool to show lines on a screen so you can say "Yep, that looks like the part I am programming". How about when you are looking for a program but not sure which one it is? Don't tell me this doesn't happen. I like to pull a program and just run the graphics to see if its the one I wanted. Can't do that on this machine if you happen to pull a program with coordiantes that exceed the available distances from the current work coordiante settings.

BR3 said:

QUOTE=RTM;2588413]Graphics do not show you rapid moves,Z moves (on most)or a myraid of other things that can be wrong.

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All my controls show rapid moves in the graphics, even the Fanucs with their ridiculously primitive graphics.

The Hurco graphics are a full solid 3D verification just like any CAM software - all toolpaths clearly displayed included rapids.

Very interesting reading as I was just looking on the Milltronics site today. My needs are a CNC router AND ridged tapping. Not usually a happy combination with a router.

gregormarwick said:

All my controls show rapid moves in the graphics, even the Fanucs with their ridiculously primitive graphics.

The Hurco graphics are a full solid 3D verification just like any CAM software - all toolpaths clearly displayed included rapids.

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You are correct. I misspoke there. All that I have used do indeed show rapid moves.

Regardless, my point about proving programs stands. You should never rely on graphics to tell you that a program is definitively safe to run. 3d and fancy colors or not.

BR3 said:

You should never rely on graphics to tell you that a program is definitively safe to run. 3d and fancy colors or not.

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Huh? What's the graphics for then? I check my approach moves to make sure my tool offsets are good, then I let her go.

BR3 said:

QUOTE=RTM;2588413]Why would you not want to? Are you confusing work coordiates with machine home coordiantes? Still shouldn't matter. When you want to know if a large mold will fit. Do you set G54 at an extreme axis travel and then work from there? Why would you not physically check how much travel you have in the machine? As in move until you hit a limit switch and set 0 then move the opposite direction until you hit that limit and look at the number? That will tell you right then if you can run it or not. Has nothing to do with graphics at all.

So you are ok with a control that you physically have to move the work coodinate location on to see the graphics for a part that is well within the capabilities of the machine travels if you have them set anywhere that the moves in the program exceed? I'm not talking about a part that is grossly oversized. I'm talking a
30" long part being run on a 64" X travel machine and will not run graphics until you set G54 at a location that the machine recognizes as with in the limits. I don't set machines up and then write programs usually. Why do you?

I find the need to set my work coordinates before wacthing graphics ridiculous. If you are relying on graphics to prove your program rather than single blocking through your first piece and reading the program as you run it. You are inviting a crash. Graphics do not show you rapid moves,Z moves (on most)or a myraid of other things that can be wrong. Graphics are simply a tool to show lines on a screen so you can say "Yep, that looks like the part I am programming". How about when you are looking for a program but not sure which one it is? Don't tell me this doesn't happen. I like to pull a program and just run the graphics to see if its the one I wanted. Can't do that on this machine if you happen to pull a program with coordiantes that exceed the available distances from the current work coordiante settings.

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Now I am really confused. So you run your program on the graphics before you set the machine up. I do not understand what you lose by doing it the other way around.

Often enough to warrant checking, a stray lead out or some move near the axis plane would set off the alarm, something easy to forget like your tooling being too short for machine's minimum z to table length. Which would prevent having an alarm later on and having to reset the machine for longer tooling.

Like I said, born and raised in a job shop. It was my dads shop and I started with sweeping floors and eventually worked my way up to today machine shop programmer in a different shop. Back when I was still working with pops, he would say to me "tool 1 is a half inch end mill, tool 2 is a... Zero is in the upper left... etc" The machine would get set up, my dad would come out with the program, he would check it in graphics. It was what made logical with having one setup guy and one programmer.

I use graphics only as a tool to visually see if what I have programmed looks like the print. I am the programmer and the setup guy. Maybe I do things differently than everybody else. Works for me though.

Wes, I never, ever look at grahpics and then walk away. That is begging for disaster in my opinion. Yours show you that tool offsets are good? I only want to see tool paths that look like lines on the blueprint. I suppose I have trust issues then even with things I do myself.


I have never had this type of software, but, I understand that there are verification programs out there that will recognise the code you have written and plot it out on your computer screen. That is all I want the graphics on my machines to do. I don't need them to tell me that the programmed cooridiantes are out of the machine range. I feel like we may be confusing the discussion or my delivery is lacking in something that is not getting my point across. Let's suffice it to say this: I have a 6mo. old VF6SS that I do not like several things about the control on. One of those things is specifically the way the graphics will not plot the programmed toolpaths on the screen if the coordinate system is not set to a poistion on the table that would allow the axis travel to complete a move regardless of the fact that the machine IS NOT MOVING.



To clarify on the setup conundrum. I am both programmer and setup guy. I see no reason for it to make any difference which comes first. Generally speaking though, I write my programs first. It is MY way and I like it.

BR3 said:

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To clarify on the setup conundrum. I am both programmer and setup guy. I see no reason for it to make any difference which comes first. Generally speaking though, I write my programs first. It is MY way and I like it.

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That's the whole point! It most certainly does make a difference!

You write the program to the best of your ability.
Whether it's all CAM, all fingercam or a combination of both, you still want to either check, but better yet backplot your program on the PC.
You can skip that part if you wish to, but it's easier to find gotchas.

Now, you transfer your program to the machine.
Just what exactly is the reason for running the graphics there BEFORE you set up your tools and workoffsets???
That ( to me anyway ) makes absolutely no freakin' sense whatsoever!

Who cares if the program is good but you fuck up the setup?

My way ( and I like it ) is:
1: Write program
2: Check on PC ( NC-Plot because it's independent of the CAM and reads finished code )
3: Set up tools
4: Set up workoffset
5: Run graphics to make sure that part fits into work envelope and that all tools are properly defined for diameter
6: Run program 2" ( or safely clear )above part, making sure lengths and speeds/feeds are good, no clamps or gremlins in the way.
7: Wash hands, run parts

BR3 said:

To clarify on the setup conundrum. I am both programmer and setup guy. I see no reason for it to make any difference which comes first. Generally speaking though, I write my programs first. It is MY way and I like it.

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Gotcha, the way I had read your initial post about the limitations of the Haas graphics, was that there was something better about not having the alarms. From what I am reading its just a matter of preference and order of how you set things up.

I would agree, using the graphics is not an end all be all for checking your program, some attentiveness to the machine is required. However, I have found the limit alarms to be handy when catching some stupid mistakes in machine setup or occasionally the program.

SeymourDumore said:

6: Run program 2" ( or safely clear )above part, making sure lengths and speeds/feeds are good, no clamps or gremlins in the way.

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I'm afraid if I did that those 8, 9 and 10+ hour jobs would never get finished. You just have to trust your set up and programming skills( and hope there isn't a zig instead of a zag 7 hours in.)

I don't know how to even access anything graphics related on my fanuc, assuming it has such a thing, hum.
So far just been using the simulation in the cad/cam onecnc thing, seems to work good.

Yawn.. a garbage company bought another garbage company.

John Welden said:

Yawn.. a garbage company bought another garbage company.

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Says the 40 year old with the 17 year old brain.

John Welden said:

Yawn.. a garbage company bought another garbage company.

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Is this what your talking about? Check out the name of the site.

Waste Management buys out ARI - Community News Corporation - Byron, MN

Alloy Mcgraw said:

Is this what your talking about? Check out the name of the site.

Waste Management buys out ARI - Community News Corporation - Byron, MN

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No I was talking about Hurco and Milltronics.

Why do you care, John? You ain't never bought a machine tool, anyway.

Bruce Nelson said:

Why do you care, John? You ain't never bought a machine tool, anyway.

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Garbage machines shouldn't be discussed on this forum. This place is for professionals. Not hobby guys. Can't we have one forum for just us? Why do you guys have to ruin it for us? I don't know why Don only draws the line at like Jet lathes and what not. The line should be any machine that is priced at less than $150k when new. And if you've ever used a Tormach you should be banned.