What's new
What's new

The new shop, machines, and a few construction pictures included

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
I've got one bunch of parts coming up I'll have to use G96 on, also gotta sort out the dwell(other post coming up if I have issues). I just filled the machine with the SC230nd tonight, I ended up buying 9 jugs of RO water for it and mixed it right around 10% right from the start. It's not as slick as the 690xt, hopefully will be as good for corrosion resistance and lubrication in the cut, I'll know in the morning if it foams, so far it seemed better when mixing in the pail. Figured what hose couplings are needed if I have to bypass the pump to drop the flow a bit though. I hope to have that machine running everyday starting tomorrow.
 

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
Well f*cking hell. This coolant is foaming even worse in this machine than the 690xt was. 1min and I got 4" of foam in there. It's got to be the 145psi pump and coolant nozzles mixing too much air into it.
Also other issue to make it all better, quoted a job too low thinking it would run with pipe, pipe weld sucked in when they made it so it doesn't clean up, $400 going to scrap, now have to drill it all out of solid, 30' of drilling, and a lathe I can't fucking run yet. Oh and I got 2 days to get it done.
 

Ox

Diamond
Joined
Aug 27, 2002
Location
West Unity, Ohio
Run uptown and fetch a sump pump and toss in the bottom of the tank and get to werk.


-----------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
Made a few mods, its making parts again and not overflowing thankfully.
Just to make yesterday even better, when I was coming back from getting a few more fittings for the pump bypass it was night and raining a bit, turns out the car a bit ahead of me had hit a skunk(it was still moving a little) and of course that juice went all over the road and was splashing every where with the rain, so now my car smells pretty darn skunky...

At least today went better, and learned a few more things about programming.
 

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
I've been moving more jobs to the new lathe, loving that collet chuck so much, and getting more familiar/confident with things and updating some code right at the machine instead of fussing with the cad/cam. That machine holds size real nice. I added a sealed LED flood light into it a few weeks ago, now I can really see what I'm doing in there, the little factory LED light wasn't nearly enough. New Fuchs coolant still running good, almost zero foam and running full blast, turns out it wasn't the machine/pump/nozzles at all, although the nozzle mod is working great at getting coolant where I want it.

I had taken quite a few pics of things I wanted to put, the wrench I made to tighten it up good, sleeves I use in the collects for odd sizes and holding length, and some other stuff, and now I can't find where any of those pictures went. I thought I had uploaded properly on the new pc so I deleted the camera, and poof gone like our tax dollars.

Anyway, this is another record year here by quite a bit, huge thanks to the US economy doing so much better and all of you who helped turn things around down there. Another customer I talked to a couple days ago said the same, record year too after about 25yrs in his manufacturing business.

Anyhow, I'll sort out the pic thing or take some new ones around the holidays.
 

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
Well, Happy New Year everyone, hopefully 2019 will be as good as the last.

Finally took some new pics and loaded the proper program to make sure they don't vanish again...

So, this here is the new toy that arrived last June. You can also see the coolant evaporator thing on the right in front on the compressor, gets rid of a bit over 1gal/day of water with zero energy used.


icBlhzD.jpg



Now this here might get some laughs, but perhaps a few others have done similar things...
Since collets do most of my work, except for a few parts but I hate having to remove the collet now that its dialed in perfect. I bought a 6" Bison 4-Jaw scroll. Still not sure if 4-jaw was wise vs 3, but is it working/holding good since I use bored jaws anyway. So, when I need to do short chucker work bigger than 2.5" I just put this thing in the 2.5" collet and away we go. I made the back end 2.520" just past the collet back end, so she definitely can't slip out. I also put a stopper in front of the pedal so I don't hit it without thinking...

For some of the collet work I've also been boring AL sleeves to hold odd sizes since I just have 4 collets ( 1", 1.5", 2", 2.5" ) some of the sleeves have a shoulder at the front and bottom end to hold length, surprisingly will hold .001" on length just resting up against front face of the collet, so long as part OD is consistent.

Anyhow...

HuD5mb5.jpg
 

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
Also this thing, maybe I posted it before as I've been using it for a few years.
Once in a while I have to do some thin plate/covers, usually plastic. So I put this in the vise, it has a shoulder at the top end, so I mill one end square then butt it up, put the fingers where they don't get in the way and let it do its thing, versatile for most odd shapes and saves from having to remove the vise.

2NIeYPA.jpg



and back to work...
 

Ox

Diamond
Joined
Aug 27, 2002
Location
West Unity, Ohio
Well, that's a cool evap.
Have you written about that before?


So, I got's'ta ask ..... What's with the TV?



-------------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
Might as well throw this too.
The LED light I added at the back end of the machine, it was pretty dark in there but this made a huge difference. I just have to make sure I don't look at it while working otherwise I see spots for a few minutes... also make a coolant baffle thing to keep some of the mist from getting sucked up the duct. Keeps good control on the mist so far.

Oh and I had to make some caps for the turret as you can see on there. First time I started to rough parts I realized oh crap the chips are getting into some of these coolant holes and so on, so that solved that. Also made some other ones for the boring bar blocks, came with 6 ID blocks but only 3 caps for thru tool coolant.

JhBMh6a.jpg
 

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
A few months ago I put in surveillance cameras, then though hey I got a spare TV and since I have no windows, now its my "window", when I think I heard a noise outside I can see if its a delivery or most often nothing.

I had mentioned the evaporator thing on another thread.
It's really just a bath towel, the cart I used to use for my mill tool holders, a stainless top tank I had for years so I put a valve on it and some 1/2" clear pipe with holes in it. It slowly drips over the towel and down to the plastic thing, once a day I empty the bottom back to the top. I park it there in front of the mini-split as its always blowing a bit of warm air and it makes a big difference in the evap rate. I just got 8 pails down to 1.5gal. I was a bit surprised to find out how much water was in the stuff when its brand new never even mixed yet... it doesn't seem to make any smell difference in the shop either, one Heat recovery air exchanger runs 24/7 anyhow so that's likely what keeps on top of it. No moisture either, being winter its often under 10% humidity in here. It was just a quick proto thing to see if it would work, and it worked way better than expected so its staying as that since but I may look into making it smaller eventually.
 

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
Oh and, on that pic of the chuck, you can also see the coolant slinger/collar I shrunk fit onto the hardinge flex-C.
Essentially the OD of the closer is smaller than the spindle face so it could take a blasting of chips over time, and I was worried about coolant getting pushed in there(Royals seems to come with it built on), so I turned that ring in 8" Al with 2 steps in it so it deflects the coolant and seems to do a good job of protecting things. I was worried about coolant getting pushed in the bearings if it made it past the labyrinth seal, at 145psi it puts out a lot of coolant fast.
 

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
So, I ran close to 100 parts in the 6" 4Jaw scroll Bison chuck held in the Flex-C the other day. Worked great, held .0003" TIR runout on the 2nd Op and parallelism was bang on. I had been a bit unsure about the 4-jaw scroll idea but so far it seems to grip really great with soft jaws. Also obviously easy to measure size while boring vs 3-jaw.
Anyhow, back at it for another day, had some sort of cold for a bit over a week, wouldn't have gotten nearly as much done without that turning center that's for sure. Right now the plan is to try to get ahead on things over the next 3 months, hoping to start getting some free time/weekends come summer, this 7 days a week thing is getting old.
 

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
Well, I guess its been a while since the last update. No new pics yet.
Had been a good busy year but right now its down to maybe 3 weeks of work on the books, actually feels good, partly summer related and partly really caught up on inventory it seems. We'll see if there's any christmas rush this year. I'll be happy if its a bit slower this fall and picks up again nov/dec.

I've gone through a few months where almost everything I touch goes wrong or breaks. 2 hr jobs trying to get someone out of a pinch that end up taking 16.
The nightmare I got myself into now is even worse, trying to help instead of just saying no thanks. Trying to do a 18x40" part in a 12x24 mill, split it into 3, but with flipping around and such I have to do 6 different setups and programs. I really need to say no to these things, no worth the stress and my brain just doesn't seem to compute these new challenges like it used to, lots of stupid mistake, and to make it better only quoted about 1/4 of what I should have so after materials and a few custom tools pretty much doing it for free, probably will take all week to program and cut if all goes well.

I guess I'm just putting it in writing so maybe I'll remember next time.

Hopefully things are going ok for you guys.
 

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
I think what really drives me nuts the most is sitting at the computer to do the cad/cam stuff, its taking hours and hours and I just feel like I've done zero work at all that is worth any $$$ at the end of it, all for a 1 off if it even works. I usually enjoy the small 10-45min cad/cam jobs and quick to run parts, but I couldn't imagine being a programmer stuck in an office doing this crap all day everyday.
Gonna go do a few hours on a regular job now just to change my mind and get something $ done today, then off to the beach for an hour to reset the brain.

I had been having some issues lately with the cad/cam(different pc), double and triple clicking when I had just clicked once, or just not clicking where I wanted, finally realized the wireless mouse was messed up so got a new mouse and all good again.
 

Mike1974

Diamond
Joined
Nov 5, 2014
Location
Tampa area
I think what really drives me nuts the most is sitting at the computer to do the cad/cam stuff, its taking hours and hours and I just feel like I've done zero work at all that is worth any $$$ at the end of it, all for a 1 off if it even works. I usually enjoy the small 10-45min cad/cam jobs and quick to run parts, but I couldn't imagine being a programmer stuck in an office doing this crap all day everyday.
Gonna go do a few hours on a regular job now just to change my mind and get something $ done today, then off to the beach for an hour to reset the brain.

I had been having some issues lately with the cad/cam(different pc), double and triple clicking when I had just clicked once, or just not clicking where I wanted, finally realized the wireless mouse was messed up so got a new mouse and all good again.

You don't know the half of it! :sleepy:

Last job I was "strictly" a programmer, there was NO interaction with the machines. Once in a while I went into the shop to double check a tool or material size but that was it. This job I am a/the programmer, but I am allowed (LoL) to go into the shop and do setups when we are busy or someone is out and help troubleshoot parts, etc. Much better environment.

I was recently surprised that a couple shops I interviewed in the last couple years or so had such a divide between programming and machine setup and operation.
 

wheelieking71

Diamond
Joined
Jan 2, 2013
Location
Gilbert, AZ
I was recently surprised that a couple shops I interviewed in the last couple years or so had such a divide between programming and machine setup and operation.

No crap! I know of way to many guys who are programmers, that were never set-up/operators. Still don't understand how this happens? :confused:

SND, I know how you feel! I am in the middle of a fairly large (for semi-conductor anyway) job right now, going through the same thing.
Tons of programming. And, set-up/fixtures, for what amounts to not a whole lot of work. An example:

20190820_121417.jpg

All that, just to drill one 4" deep 1/4" hole in 3 parts.
There is a whole lot more work to them when this operation is done. But, the hole needed punched now, because it gets milled in to later.
It would have been impossible to create the feature had I done all the other work first.
So, this simple part, instead of being just a couple operations, becomes: OP1, OP1.5, OP2, OP2.5, Final OP. So much work for three simple parts.
Only good thing is I have a lot of experience quoting this crap, and saw it coming.......$$$$$
 

Mike1974

Diamond
Joined
Nov 5, 2014
Location
Tampa area
No crap! I know of way to many guys who are programmers, that were never set-up/operators. Still don't understand how this happens? :confused:

SND, I know how you feel! I am in the middle of a fairly large (for semi-conductor anyway) job right now, going through the same thing.
Tons of programming. And, set-up/fixtures, for what amounts to not a whole lot of work. An example:

View attachment 263537

All that, just to drill one 4" deep 1/4" hole in 3 parts.
There is a whole lot more work to them when this operation is done. But, the hole needed punched now, because it gets milled in to later.
It would have been impossible to create the feature had I done all the other work first.
So, this simple part, instead of being just a couple operations, becomes: OP1, OP1.5, OP2, OP2.5, Final OP. So much work for three simple parts.
Only good thing is I have a lot of experience quoting this crap, and saw it coming.......$$$$$

Our education system. Too many people wanting to move right into the corner office. MBA-CEO-CFO-BA's-AD's-CPA... everyone wants a title/office job... :D

I'm glad I got my work experience on the floor. I know I would be deficient in a place using a ton of macro's and FBM style of programming, but I LOVE being able to go out in the shop and say "why don't you do xx? what about doing it like this?" etc...
 








 
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