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trytochaseme
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Guess what we just won at the auction!
Bringing this bad guy home soon
Bringing this bad guy home soon
Burns Projects that will never be finished
- Thread starter trytochaseme
- Start date
Pressingonward
Well-known member
Wow, that was a rough stretch there. Good on you for keeping a positive attitude!
Retro Husky looks sweet, can't wait to see your take on it. What year is that frame?
Interesting seeing the fixtures and setups for the AR-10s. I bought a bunch of mags before our WA mag ban went into effect on the first of this month, so I guess I'll have to build one up one of these days...can't just leave those mags sitting in a box, they might get lonely
Retro Husky looks sweet, can't wait to see your take on it. What year is that frame?
Interesting seeing the fixtures and setups for the AR-10s. I bought a bunch of mags before our WA mag ban went into effect on the first of this month, so I guess I'll have to build one up one of these days...can't just leave those mags sitting in a box, they might get lonely
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trytochaseme
Well-known member
Wow, that was a rough stretch there. Good on you for keeping a positive attitude!
Retro Husky looks sweet, can't wait to see your take on it. What year is that frame?
Interesting seeing the fixtures and setups for the AR-10s. I bought a bunch of mags before our WA mag ban went into effect on the first of this month, so I guess I'll have to build one up one of these days...can't just leave those mags sitting in a box, they might get lonely
the frame I am building up is from 2017. So it will be pretty much the latest chassis with all the retro looks.
at least you were able to stock up before hand, you know where to go if you need the firearms now
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trytochaseme
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not exactly what we wanted. We were both in aggrement we wanted to stay as far away from Haas as we could but we just won this at auction for $4300... I mean at that cheap we couldn't pass it up. It will fit in the garage easily too and we can make some money with it till we get the barn built. Then next year we can put some money in and buy a much nicer machine. Very excited though! Should have much more machining content soon. I would really like to start making some youtube videos too.
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trytochaseme
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The Haas purchase was a pretty last minute thing. My father in law called me 10 min before the auction ended and asked what I thought. Like I said before neither of us wanted a Haas but it was at $3200 when he called me and we both agreed any working machine for $5k or less is hard to pass up. Since it was last minute we never got to go look at it before had like we did with the lathe. So we went and checked it out last night. Was able to get it hooked up to power and move it around a bit. Was also able to get the head moved down and blocked for transport. It was quite interesting getting it hooked up. It was all wired in still but someone disconnected it inside a breaker box. We were able to hook that part back up easy enough to get power but the next problem was air. We were on a time crunch as they were about to close so we ran around the corner to walmart and bought a little air compressor. Had to do some finangling to get air line hooked up but we got it to work. I did not get to turn the spindle on but jogging it around the axis seemed in decent shape. The X was pretty noisy so a new ballscrew may be in the future for that guy.
My wife was unimpressed by how dirty everything was
It definitely needs some cleaning and maybe some fresh paint. I hate having everything covered in oil and ****.
The machine doesn't have too many options. It is a VF0E so it has extended travel over a VF0. It has programmable coolant, Rigid Tap, USB port, quick code. I was really hoping it would have bigger memory and pre wire for 4th axis but its really not a big deal. The plan is to only have this guy for about the next year or so and then buy a newer Okuma or even a brand new one depending on how the next year goes.
Speaking of Okuma, at the gun shop we have a MB-4000H horizontal pallet machine coming. I think I may have mentioned that previously but now we are ordering a Genos M560V aswell. I got to go see one of them running and it was incredible. For only a little bit more money over the Hurcos you get a machine that is levels ahead. Compared to the same size Hurcos the Okumas have doubled the horsepower, half the tool change time, faster spindles, faster rapids. The price difference? about a 100k vs 115k. Insane how much better of a machine you can get for not much more money. I should be able to make twice as many parts on the Okuma then the Hurcos. When it comes in in a few weeks I will definitely make a update on it.
My wife was unimpressed by how dirty everything was
It definitely needs some cleaning and maybe some fresh paint. I hate having everything covered in oil and ****.
The machine doesn't have too many options. It is a VF0E so it has extended travel over a VF0. It has programmable coolant, Rigid Tap, USB port, quick code. I was really hoping it would have bigger memory and pre wire for 4th axis but its really not a big deal. The plan is to only have this guy for about the next year or so and then buy a newer Okuma or even a brand new one depending on how the next year goes.
Speaking of Okuma, at the gun shop we have a MB-4000H horizontal pallet machine coming. I think I may have mentioned that previously but now we are ordering a Genos M560V aswell. I got to go see one of them running and it was incredible. For only a little bit more money over the Hurcos you get a machine that is levels ahead. Compared to the same size Hurcos the Okumas have doubled the horsepower, half the tool change time, faster spindles, faster rapids. The price difference? about a 100k vs 115k. Insane how much better of a machine you can get for not much more money. I should be able to make twice as many parts on the Okuma then the Hurcos. When it comes in in a few weeks I will definitely make a update on it.
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trytochaseme
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Well the new machines are home!
we need to move them into position but atleast they are in our possession
AR10s are up for sale now too. The first pallets shipped out today!
I did a photoshoot with some of them. happy with how it came out
and here is my personal one, serial #1!
we need to move them into position but atleast they are in our possession
AR10s are up for sale now too. The first pallets shipped out today!
I did a photoshoot with some of them. happy with how it came out
and here is my personal one, serial #1!
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trytochaseme
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We got some skates and got the machines moved into place. Making progress!
jbmatth
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The 10's look great, congrats on getting them and the CNC's, I'm sure you are stoked. Out of curiosity what all calibers will they be offered in?
JB
JB
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trytochaseme
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Thanks! At the moment just 308 but 6.5 creedmore will be coming soon. Down the road we might offer some more options but at the moment we are very limited on machines and have limited production capacity on these.
I finally got my 150 back together a couple weeks ago
Rode around the home trail a bit, then took it up to silver lake sand dunes. Its not really set up very well for the dunes but I still had a good time. Went out yesterday with my dad and did a chill little ride. Had ridden this trail once before last year. You gotta get past the first few miles of very whooped out stuff and then its gets good. We found how to take some roads to skip all the whooped out **** on our way back. So now excited to go back and skip it all and go farther. Haven't done the full loop there so lot more trail to explore.
Here is just a few clips from riding yesterday.
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trytochaseme
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We got this new toy friday!
I think this thing is the new highlight of my machining career. This machine is an aboslute beast. Ive used mainly 20 year old economy CNC's. Here at gun shop we have a bunch of brand new machines but they are still economy machines I call them. They work alright but for production like we do they just don't keep up. I convinced them to try something different. This Okuma is now outputting the same amount of parts as 2 of the Hurcos did. When I first started here they were machining AR15 lowers with 6 different machines and required being moved 5 seperate times by the operator to be finished. I reprogramed a little bit of it and got it down to 5 machines. This Okuma now brings up down to 4. Thats not good enough though. I figured out if we switch to an extrusion and put a 5 axis on this Okuma we could make more then half of what we need normally. So if we got one more of these also with a 5 axis we could make more then we do currently. 6 machines down to 2. These only cost about 10-20% more. They are incredible machines for the price. I will have to set my gopro up in it so y'all can see how fast it moves.
Got out to a new trail this weekend. Had never ridden here and went by myself so took it a little easy so someone didn't find me dead in the middle of the trail. Was a super rocky trail. I need to bring extra gopro batteries because it died and I missed some pretty gnarly sections.
Here is a few clips I got from it.
ended up smashing my factory carbon chain guide
Probably not the best idea to use that for anything other than motocross though so thats on me.
Couldn't resist taking some pics of my babies together
I picked up some titanium engine mounts
I am also thinking about trying a little bit of a retro look. I did this rough photoshop to see how it would look with this headlight
and than I was thinking of some subtle graphics like this.
I think this thing is the new highlight of my machining career. This machine is an aboslute beast. Ive used mainly 20 year old economy CNC's. Here at gun shop we have a bunch of brand new machines but they are still economy machines I call them. They work alright but for production like we do they just don't keep up. I convinced them to try something different. This Okuma is now outputting the same amount of parts as 2 of the Hurcos did. When I first started here they were machining AR15 lowers with 6 different machines and required being moved 5 seperate times by the operator to be finished. I reprogramed a little bit of it and got it down to 5 machines. This Okuma now brings up down to 4. Thats not good enough though. I figured out if we switch to an extrusion and put a 5 axis on this Okuma we could make more then half of what we need normally. So if we got one more of these also with a 5 axis we could make more then we do currently. 6 machines down to 2. These only cost about 10-20% more. They are incredible machines for the price. I will have to set my gopro up in it so y'all can see how fast it moves.
Got out to a new trail this weekend. Had never ridden here and went by myself so took it a little easy so someone didn't find me dead in the middle of the trail.
Was a super rocky trail. I need to bring extra gopro batteries because it died and I missed some pretty gnarly sections.Here is a few clips I got from it.
ended up smashing my factory carbon chain guide
Probably not the best idea to use that for anything other than motocross though so thats on me.
Couldn't resist taking some pics of my babies together
I picked up some titanium engine mounts
I am also thinking about trying a little bit of a retro look. I did this rough photoshop to see how it would look with this headlight
and than I was thinking of some subtle graphics like this.
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trytochaseme
Well-known member
I ended up getting the headlight
I kinda love it. It looks better in person too. Not sure if I should do yellow number plate backgrounds on the sides or do a blue background on the light.
Also got some more titanium on the way
We also made some progress on my buddys 200. Its a 2015 and he wanted to do the 2016-2018 body work on it. We machined an adapter for the top subframe mounts and he welded new brackets for the bottom mounts. Then I machined a spacer for the reeds as there was a gap between the carb and reeds so we needed to fill that.
Thrown together with alot of my old parts but it is definitely getting there. We also did the ohlins/AER forks for him as well as I have been very happy with how mine have been working.
I kinda love it. It looks better in person too. Not sure if I should do yellow number plate backgrounds on the sides or do a blue background on the light.
Also got some more titanium on the way
We also made some progress on my buddys 200. Its a 2015 and he wanted to do the 2016-2018 body work on it. We machined an adapter for the top subframe mounts and he welded new brackets for the bottom mounts. Then I machined a spacer for the reeds as there was a gap between the carb and reeds so we needed to fill that.
Thrown together with alot of my old parts but it is definitely getting there. We also did the ohlins/AER forks for him as well as I have been very happy with how mine have been working.
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trytochaseme
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Made it over to Motocross of Nations last weekend at Red Bud. As always Red Bud is one of my favorite days of the year. Bing MXON made it even better. Weather was not great but it was better then in 2018. Here is a few pics I got from it.
Here was Jett making the pass and a little contact with sexton in moto 2
Jett taking the win in moto 2
Here was Jett making the pass and a little contact with sexton in moto 2
Jett taking the win in moto 2
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jbmatth
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Looks like a fun race, but the 300 win mag AR 10...I really like that one too.
JB
JB
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trytochaseme
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This 150sx build is taking a slight change of direction. Going to be less bastardized but even more trick
Picked up this CRM carbon tank from a member on here. You may notice it is not for Gas Gas plastics but for KTM. It is also for fuel injected bikes. Now the idea to convert this bike to TBI has crossed my mind many times and I have come close to buying parts I love the simplicity of almost 0 electronics. So the bike will stay that way.... Atleast for now, if you haven't noticed I do change my mind quite often.
To make this tank work for me I machined this little adapter. I am waiting for barb fitting to arrive tomorrow but the open hole will be tapped for a pipe tap and a barb fitting will go there so I can run a hose to the carb.
Here is how it will sit in the tank. Ignore the bolt and washers, those will be replaced with a flanged titanium bolt.
I need to make a plate to cover the back hole for the fuel pump. I will make that tomorrow then get the tank all buttoned up.
Picked up this CRM carbon tank from a member on here. You may notice it is not for Gas Gas plastics but for KTM. It is also for fuel injected bikes. Now the idea to convert this bike to TBI has crossed my mind many times and I have come close to buying parts I love the simplicity of almost 0 electronics. So the bike will stay that way.... Atleast for now, if you haven't noticed I do change my mind quite often.
To make this tank work for me I machined this little adapter. I am waiting for barb fitting to arrive tomorrow but the open hole will be tapped for a pipe tap and a barb fitting will go there so I can run a hose to the carb.
Here is how it will sit in the tank. Ignore the bolt and washers, those will be replaced with a flanged titanium bolt.
I need to make a plate to cover the back hole for the fuel pump. I will make that tomorrow then get the tank all buttoned up.
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trytochaseme
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Here is the carbon tank mounted up with the new plastics and graphics
Forks will be going back to silver/grey. Frame will be silver. Seat will be black.
The idea is a modern version of the early 2000s KTM factory 125 race bikes
Those bikes are some of the best looking bikes of all time in my opinion so I want to make mine kind of a homage to them. The graphics I got aren't perfect but they are close enough for now.
Forks will be going back to silver/grey. Frame will be silver. Seat will be black.
The idea is a modern version of the early 2000s KTM factory 125 race bikes
Those bikes are some of the best looking bikes of all time in my opinion so I want to make mine kind of a homage to them. The graphics I got aren't perfect but they are close enough for now.
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jbmatth
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Okay, I'm going to make some really bad guesses, but looks like a 30-06, .270 and kind looks like a .308 but the case is larger than I remember. When will these as well as the Glocks be available online?
JB
JB
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trytochaseme
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you got the 30-06! there is also 7mm mag, 6.5 PRC, then 300WM.
Not sure when these will be available. Waiting on some custom BCG parts so we can do testing. If all that stuff is good then really I only need to figure out the magazines but I am sure it will take some time to sort it all out. At the moment I have no date on the Glocks either. Those have just been delay after delay with dealing with ATF, parts suppliers, then just trying to make them function absolutely perfectly. Taking a gun designed to be made out of plastic and making it out of metal is wayy more work then you would think. At the moment they are kind of on the backburner for these new AR10s, we are talking about maybe doing 308 ar15s next like the POF Rouge and the Ruger SFAR.
jbmatth
Well-known member
Well not the first time I only had 50% on a pop quiz.
I should have known the 7mm but didn't look at the case enough. Well the Glocks have been on my wish list for a bit now, and I'll be adding the AR10's, seems like a really good way to burn through a lot of expensive ammo, I like it! Definitely let us, or at least me, know when they are released.JB
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trytochaseme
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Had to rebuild the forks on the 150, stripped them back down to silver well they were apart.
Have a black seat coming in next.
Also got one of my MTB back together finally
This is really a trail frame, only 110mm travel out back but it is a super playful bike that can take a beating. So i decided to set it up as a slope bike. Its now SS, no dropper post. Much beefier components then it would normally have. Let me tell ya, this thing f#ck$.
It is so much dang fun. Working on a custom chain tensioner setup for it but even raced it this weekend. I didn't do well on the account that there was a long uphill section and this bike does not go uphill so I had to run up it. But I went down fast enough that I still didn't come in last so it worked out lol. It was just a fun race with all the local guys that we put on every year. Should have a pic or 2 from it soon.
Here is a pic from the first shakedown ride on this bike though/
I also ended up picking up a drop bar.
Got this guy cheap, its nothing fancy but I have been wanting to give the whole gravel bike thing a shot. So far I am really liking it. Taken it on some of the single track trails I have gotten bored with. This definitely makes them a little more challenging. Also good at getting me back in shape. Not riding much the last couple years is starting to show
Have a black seat coming in next.
Also got one of my MTB back together finally
This is really a trail frame, only 110mm travel out back but it is a super playful bike that can take a beating. So i decided to set it up as a slope bike. Its now SS, no dropper post. Much beefier components then it would normally have. Let me tell ya, this thing f#ck$.
It is so much dang fun. Working on a custom chain tensioner setup for it but even raced it this weekend. I didn't do well on the account that there was a long uphill section and this bike does not go uphill so I had to run up it. But I went down fast enough that I still didn't come in last so it worked out lol. It was just a fun race with all the local guys that we put on every year. Should have a pic or 2 from it soon.
Here is a pic from the first shakedown ride on this bike though/
I also ended up picking up a drop bar.
Got this guy cheap, its nothing fancy but I have been wanting to give the whole gravel bike thing a shot. So far I am really liking it. Taken it on some of the single track trails I have gotten bored with. This definitely makes them a little more challenging. Also good at getting me back in shape. Not riding much the last couple years is starting to show
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trytochaseme
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Having a riot again pedaling my a$$ around
Its made me also get back into machining bike parts a bit.
First off I am working on this custom tensioner setup for the SS park bike. For this rough first proto I made a mount to run a derailleur under the BB. It has worked perfectly so far but the next version will be much more compact and sleek
Next off I finally got to machine V2 of my proto stem!
Check out the weight!
Now to do a bunch of testing and make some more.
Also have gone a little crazy on the gravel bike. It has really turned into my trail bike as I have been riding it on all the single track around me. We have a lot of trails in my area but they are all pretty mellow so I have always found them kinda boring and part of the reason i will go for a year or so with barely riding. Well taking a glorified road bike on them definitely makes it a little more exciting!
Went to Sram Rival eTap drivetrain which is a wireless electronic drivatrain. So no cables to deal with. Also got Sram Force AXS cranks which are carbon fiber with a power meter in them. I threw on a dropper post I had and also tossed on new tires. Next thing that needs to be upgraded in the wheels, I think I will swap this bike to 29's and I also need new forks. I somehow already cracked the forks on this bike. I don't think this entry level bike was built for the abuse I have put it through haha
Its made me also get back into machining bike parts a bit.
First off I am working on this custom tensioner setup for the SS park bike. For this rough first proto I made a mount to run a derailleur under the BB. It has worked perfectly so far but the next version will be much more compact and sleek
Next off I finally got to machine V2 of my proto stem!
Check out the weight!
Now to do a bunch of testing and make some more.
Also have gone a little crazy on the gravel bike. It has really turned into my trail bike as I have been riding it on all the single track around me. We have a lot of trails in my area but they are all pretty mellow so I have always found them kinda boring and part of the reason i will go for a year or so with barely riding. Well taking a glorified road bike on them definitely makes it a little more exciting!
Went to Sram Rival eTap drivetrain which is a wireless electronic drivatrain. So no cables to deal with. Also got Sram Force AXS cranks which are carbon fiber with a power meter in them. I threw on a dropper post I had and also tossed on new tires. Next thing that needs to be upgraded in the wheels, I think I will swap this bike to 29's and I also need new forks. I somehow already cracked the forks on this bike. I don't think this entry level bike was built for the abuse I have put it through haha
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trytochaseme
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Long time no updates!
Spring is around the corner so time to dust off the ol one fiddy and get her ready.
I collected some parts over winter but hadn't actually touched the bike as I lack a heated garage.
First parts were this billet clutch cover and the modified brake lever
Next up was this new GET ecu
My hands were pretty cold at this point so I called it a day haha. It was only 32 degrees out but the sun was shinning so it felt nicer for a little bit
I had the guys at the shop cerakote my gravel bike a little bit ago. Need to finish getting it put back together still.
I will have some other big updates here soon. One on the firearm side which I can't legally say anything about for another week or so. Then this thread might finally be a real "garage" thread as we may possibly be purchasing a new house with a garage
Spring is around the corner so time to dust off the ol one fiddy and get her ready.
I collected some parts over winter but hadn't actually touched the bike as I lack a heated garage.
First parts were this billet clutch cover and the modified brake lever
Next up was this new GET ecu
My hands were pretty cold at this point so I called it a day haha. It was only 32 degrees out but the sun was shinning so it felt nicer for a little bit
I had the guys at the shop cerakote my gravel bike a little bit ago. Need to finish getting it put back together still.
I will have some other big updates here soon. One on the firearm side which I can't legally say anything about for another week or so. Then this thread might finally be a real "garage" thread as we may possibly be purchasing a new house with a garage
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trytochaseme
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oops double post
jbmatth
Well-known member
Great to hear from you again, bikes look great and I wish you the best on getting a real garage soon.
JB
JB
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trytochaseme
Well-known member
Been extremely busy at work. Here are 2 of my main projects lately.
This Mill we had a 5 axis trunnion to it and I programmed it for AR15 Lower receivers. In the middle of getting the robot installed now. This guy puts out a Lower every 25 min or about 350 a week. We use to need 6 mills being operated by multiple guys to put out that amount in a week.
This guy is another awesome machine. I am programming it for AR10 Upper Receivers. We originally sent this machine to another company to set up. Was not really my decision, but I am not happy with how it turned out. They used my fixture design and then the programming was pretty rediculous. I have been redoing it all and I have gotten the run time down almost 50%. That means it only takes about 10 min to do a complete Upper Receiver. I am really stoked by that number because other sources told me I would not be able to do that by going with an extrusion. They all said a casting was the only way to go to get the run time under 20 min.
We just ordered a 10 station Pallet pool for this machine so that I can also make AR15 uppers on it. It will also allow the machine to run all night unattended then as well. Along with that we also just ordered a pretty tricked out Okuma Lathe. Sub spindle, live tooling, y axis, bar feeder, parts catcher. This one lathe will replace 3 other machines. It will let me make a bunch of our small parts in 1 setup. It will run for days on its own. Right now the time we waste on small parts and moving them between machines in multiple ops in insane. When that machine comes in I will do a more detailed right up on it.
This Mill we had a 5 axis trunnion to it and I programmed it for AR15 Lower receivers. In the middle of getting the robot installed now. This guy puts out a Lower every 25 min or about 350 a week. We use to need 6 mills being operated by multiple guys to put out that amount in a week.
This guy is another awesome machine. I am programming it for AR10 Upper Receivers. We originally sent this machine to another company to set up. Was not really my decision, but I am not happy with how it turned out. They used my fixture design and then the programming was pretty rediculous. I have been redoing it all and I have gotten the run time down almost 50%. That means it only takes about 10 min to do a complete Upper Receiver. I am really stoked by that number because other sources told me I would not be able to do that by going with an extrusion. They all said a casting was the only way to go to get the run time under 20 min.
We just ordered a 10 station Pallet pool for this machine so that I can also make AR15 uppers on it. It will also allow the machine to run all night unattended then as well. Along with that we also just ordered a pretty tricked out Okuma Lathe. Sub spindle, live tooling, y axis, bar feeder, parts catcher. This one lathe will replace 3 other machines. It will let me make a bunch of our small parts in 1 setup. It will run for days on its own. Right now the time we waste on small parts and moving them between machines in multiple ops in insane. When that machine comes in I will do a more detailed right up on it.
jbmatth
Well-known member
Great job figuring out how to make the operations go smoother and quicker, how are the projects at home going?
JB
JB
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trytochaseme
Well-known member
Thanks! Haven't really done anything at home. We are currently trying to buy my Wifes Great Grandmas house. She sadly passed away a little over a month ago. She has a nice little house with a about 40 acres. On her land is where my mother and father in laws house is as well and its the land I ride my dirt bike on. So it would be pretty awesome to be able to purchase it. We are pretty confident we will get it but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself if it doesn't work out. We would not get all the land as it is being divided between her kids but the house does have a garage so I would finally have my own garage. My inlaws house would be about 500 feet away though the woods which would work out awesome as that is where my Mill and lathe are out. The goal would be to then build a pole barn between our houses to have our shop in. So trying not to get our hopes up but it would be a pretty awesome scenerio. If it works out then we will get our current house finished once we our moved out. Its very hard to work on a tiny house well living in it. Then either we will rent it out or sell it.
jbmatth
Well-known member
Sorry to hear about your Great Grandmother-in-laws passing. As far as getting that house and being able to have a garage and shop all on your own spread, it is a much better setup and makes project time much easier to come by.
JB
JB
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trytochaseme
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Getting closer on the house. Hopefully can close before the summer.
In the mean time the 150 is getting close to being the ultimate works 150. Scored some more trick parts for it.
Titanium subframe from the factory team. Super rare part.
Carbon Ignition cover ran by the Buds Racing EMX team overseas in MXGP
Carbon frame guards
Titanium/carbon Silencer. Came with the pipe but not going to use it. just put it up for sale.
Weather is up in the 60s/70s here finally so excited to get these parts on and get riding!
My GTI has also been pretty neglected lately. Have a few mods I want to do to it soon. Once we get the house sorted I should be picking up a 1st gen seqoia from my in laws. Its got relatively low miles for the age. 120k, just had a ton of work on it with fresh suspension/lift, brakes, ball joints, new TRD wheels and 33s. So the GTI will get moved off year round daily duty and can be the summer play car. Plus wont have to tow the bikes with it anymore which would be really nice.
In the mean time the 150 is getting close to being the ultimate works 150. Scored some more trick parts for it.
Titanium subframe from the factory team. Super rare part.
Carbon Ignition cover ran by the Buds Racing EMX team overseas in MXGP
Carbon frame guards
Titanium/carbon Silencer. Came with the pipe but not going to use it. just put it up for sale.
Weather is up in the 60s/70s here finally so excited to get these parts on and get riding!
My GTI has also been pretty neglected lately. Have a few mods I want to do to it soon. Once we get the house sorted I should be picking up a 1st gen seqoia from my in laws. Its got relatively low miles for the age. 120k, just had a ton of work on it with fresh suspension/lift, brakes, ball joints, new TRD wheels and 33s. So the GTI will get moved off year round daily duty and can be the summer play car. Plus wont have to tow the bikes with it anymore which would be really nice.
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trytochaseme
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The rain has stopped and the sun has come out of hibernation. Time to get the bikes ready for action.
Got the park bike ready to rock with my 1 off stem, lowered the forks to 130mm travel.
Ive got a new part coming for V2 of my front mount tensioner. Also have a pretty trick carbon wheelset on the way as well.
The "gravel" bike is about ready to go. Just need to get rear brake and chain on and then wrap the bars.
Got the park bike ready to rock with my 1 off stem, lowered the forks to 130mm travel.
Ive got a new part coming for V2 of my front mount tensioner. Also have a pretty trick carbon wheelset on the way as well.
The "gravel" bike is about ready to go. Just need to get rear brake and chain on and then wrap the bars.
OP
trytochaseme
Well-known member
I haven't lived a long life but in my 27 years Ive learned that I am not really great at anything and Im not that intelligent. I don't mean that in a "I want pity" kind of a way but that whenever you start to get an ego on something it seems like thats when you make a bonehead mistake and it brings you back down to reality. I feel like I am usually on the beginning peak of the Dunning Kruger effect .
I always jokingly say my motto is "fake it till you make it" and I usually feel that way when it comes to machining. Then I have moments where I feel like I actually know what the F#$k i am actually doing and am pretty good at it. I have been in that mood lately. I am getting this horizontal mill wrapped up. Now we originally sent this machine to another company and paid them to make the fixturing and program the machine for production. This was not my choice, I would have much preffered to do it all myself. I had already had the fixturing mostly designed, all the hard work I had already sorted out. It would be the first horizontal I ever programmed but in reality its not much different then a vertical mill. If you can do one you can do the other. The owners decided they rather have someone else do it and paid a well respected company $140,000 to do this. This frustrated me a little as thats basically double what I get paid over a whole year for a job that I could really do in 2 months.
I had lots of meetings with this company and shared my fixture designs with them. In the end they basically used my exact design just finished it off and then programmed it, over a course of 6 long months. I had some irritations along the way. I did not get the say I wanted with tooling and such. But in the end the machine would get delivered and be 100% ready for us to start running parts. Where things got worse is once we got it and I got to see the programming I realized what an absolute pile of **** it was.
In production the name of the game is efficiency. Every second you can cut off counts, you try to optimize every tool, every pass, every move. I will program the part in CAM but I spend hours afterwards editing the code by hand to get it running as best I can come up with. When I start running their program it would start with tool #1 and rough the top of the part. Between every pass it would lift 10" above the part. Then it would go to a different tool, then it would come back to tool #1 and rough a different spot.
In my eyes rule #1 of efficeny is optimize your tool order. There is very rarely reason you need to change to the same tool twice. Depending on the machine that can be an extra 30 seconds every time. Having your retract position 10" above the part is a great idea for the first test runs but once the program is good I go into the code and start tweaking that down till the tool comes up enough just to clear the part. It may only be 1 second saved but when you do that 1000 times in a program thats almost 17 minutes.
These are the first things that made my blood boil. Then I start realizing how terrible to tool choices are. Why are we using 3 different 5/8 tools when we can consolidate that down to 1 or even 2. Why are we using tools that are 6" long and have to be run so slow when we can use a longer holder and shorter tool. A much stronger setup that lets you run much faster and get better finishes.
For example they had set up wit this ballnose that was sticking way out of the holer.
The tool did not need to stick out that long at all. We need the length to clear the tombstone but a longer holder will do that. I swapped it out to this setup and went with a smaller diameter ball nose. That let me consolidate a 1/4 ballnose and a 1/2 ballnose to a single 3/8 ballnose.
Anyways if you made it this far thanks for reading my rant. I would really like to do some youtube videos on this type of stuff. I find cutting out every second and optimizing this stuff so much fun. I really love it.
I feel like I know what I am actually doing since I was able to take a program made by a team of guys that have been doing this for decades and cut it down by 50%. Yea I cut the damn thing in half. It was 4 hours and now I am down to 2. I think thats more of a testimate to how ****** they did and not that I am some magical genius. But I am going to take a little credit to make myself feel good, but also frustrated that they guys got $140k and I redid most of their work in a couple weeks and I made a few grand in that time lol. Again not hear trying to get a pity party just getting on whats in my head. I am hoping I can do this on my own some day and do these turn key solutions for other companies. So I can just go in and setup a machine and then leave. Maybe then I can make the big bucks. I am hoping once my father in law and I get our own shop up and going I can purchase a older fanuc robot and start getting more into that side of things. The automation stuff is so cool I want to learn more and get more into it.
Thats it for now. Thats my thoughts on efficeny in production. I might do a little write up on some cool programming I did for our 5 axis with the robot. Maybe more pictures next time and less words.
.I always jokingly say my motto is "fake it till you make it" and I usually feel that way when it comes to machining. Then I have moments where I feel like I actually know what the F#$k i am actually doing and am pretty good at it. I have been in that mood lately. I am getting this horizontal mill wrapped up. Now we originally sent this machine to another company and paid them to make the fixturing and program the machine for production. This was not my choice, I would have much preffered to do it all myself. I had already had the fixturing mostly designed, all the hard work I had already sorted out. It would be the first horizontal I ever programmed but in reality its not much different then a vertical mill. If you can do one you can do the other. The owners decided they rather have someone else do it and paid a well respected company $140,000 to do this. This frustrated me a little as thats basically double what I get paid over a whole year for a job that I could really do in 2 months.
I had lots of meetings with this company and shared my fixture designs with them. In the end they basically used my exact design just finished it off and then programmed it, over a course of 6 long months. I had some irritations along the way. I did not get the say I wanted with tooling and such. But in the end the machine would get delivered and be 100% ready for us to start running parts. Where things got worse is once we got it and I got to see the programming I realized what an absolute pile of **** it was.
In production the name of the game is efficiency. Every second you can cut off counts, you try to optimize every tool, every pass, every move. I will program the part in CAM but I spend hours afterwards editing the code by hand to get it running as best I can come up with. When I start running their program it would start with tool #1 and rough the top of the part. Between every pass it would lift 10" above the part. Then it would go to a different tool, then it would come back to tool #1 and rough a different spot.
In my eyes rule #1 of efficeny is optimize your tool order. There is very rarely reason you need to change to the same tool twice. Depending on the machine that can be an extra 30 seconds every time. Having your retract position 10" above the part is a great idea for the first test runs but once the program is good I go into the code and start tweaking that down till the tool comes up enough just to clear the part. It may only be 1 second saved but when you do that 1000 times in a program thats almost 17 minutes.
These are the first things that made my blood boil. Then I start realizing how terrible to tool choices are. Why are we using 3 different 5/8 tools when we can consolidate that down to 1 or even 2. Why are we using tools that are 6" long and have to be run so slow when we can use a longer holder and shorter tool. A much stronger setup that lets you run much faster and get better finishes.
For example they had set up wit this ballnose that was sticking way out of the holer.
The tool did not need to stick out that long at all. We need the length to clear the tombstone but a longer holder will do that. I swapped it out to this setup and went with a smaller diameter ball nose. That let me consolidate a 1/4 ballnose and a 1/2 ballnose to a single 3/8 ballnose.
Anyways if you made it this far thanks for reading my rant. I would really like to do some youtube videos on this type of stuff. I find cutting out every second and optimizing this stuff so much fun. I really love it.
I feel like I know what I am actually doing since I was able to take a program made by a team of guys that have been doing this for decades and cut it down by 50%. Yea I cut the damn thing in half. It was 4 hours and now I am down to 2. I think thats more of a testimate to how ****** they did and not that I am some magical genius. But I am going to take a little credit to make myself feel good, but also frustrated that they guys got $140k and I redid most of their work in a couple weeks and I made a few grand in that time lol. Again not hear trying to get a pity party just getting on whats in my head. I am hoping I can do this on my own some day and do these turn key solutions for other companies. So I can just go in and setup a machine and then leave. Maybe then I can make the big bucks
. I am hoping once my father in law and I get our own shop up and going I can purchase a older fanuc robot and start getting more into that side of things. The automation stuff is so cool I want to learn more and get more into it.Thats it for now. Thats my thoughts on efficeny in production. I might do a little write up on some cool programming I did for our 5 axis with the robot. Maybe more pictures next time and less words.
jbmatth
Well-known member
I feel for ya man, it is really surprising they didn't let you run with it from the beginning with a price tag of 140k. Out of curiosity now that you've optimized it have you shown your leadership how much you've helped production and crunched the numbers to show they value you've added to the process. Something I've learned is that it isn't necessarily what you do, it is selling that up the chain to sell yourself. I know for me at least I don't like to brag on what I can do, but you really have to in order to get where you want to go.
Really good job for you though, continual optimization is huge, seconds make months, grams make pounds, pennies make millions, keep it up and it'll pay off big time. I look forward to following along and see what you can do when you are on your own.
JB
Really good job for you though, continual optimization is huge, seconds make months, grams make pounds, pennies make millions, keep it up and it'll pay off big time. I look forward to following along and see what you can do when you are on your own.
JB
OP
trytochaseme
Well-known member
It definitely does seem like you need to be able to sell your self. I've started keeping track of everything I've done around here to save them money and improve efficiency.
When I first started here I reprogrammed the machine that made our lower receivers. When I started it was a 100 minutes run time for the first 2 operations. I reprogrammed it and got it down to 50 minutes. Cut it in half, one of the main components that we couldn't make fast enough. At that time I calculated it to be about $2,000,000 saved per year in time alone. One thing I love about this field is I am constantly learning and 1 year later I had some ideas to cut it down even more. I reprogrammed it again and got it down to 32 minutes. Another pretty huge drop. Then we got a better machine and I reprogrammed it a 3rd time and was down to 21 minutes.
I have been able to do that on most of the machines here, I have a current roadmap I made for the company and with 2 more machine purchases we will be able to produce the same amount of parts if not way more for some on 11 machines for what use to take 24 machines. That would make most of the machines here run lights out, the need for only a couple operators, frees up a ton of much needed space around here.
I don't know, I really do enjoy it here for the most part. I don't think I should be making hundreds of thousands of dollars but a little bit of something would be nice. I actually just turned down a job offer yesterday that was basically my dream job. It would have been for a really freaking nice mountian bike component manufacturer, the pay would have been quite a bit better but it was going to require moving across the country. If we weren't commited to buying this house I would have probably convinced my wife to move. But here I get to work with some really awesome machines, I have learned so damn much in the last year its crazy. I have been able to look back year after year of machining and seeing the progress is really cool. When I first started here and reprogrammed the lower receivers it took me weeks to edit all the code and organize it how I wanted. That was only running 3 parts at once and now I am doing it on a horizontal mill running 12 parts at once, 50 sub programs with custom macros and a bunch of extras. I am extremely excited for the lathe we have coming. Sub spindle and live tooling is a completely new world for me.
I don't want to sound negative I am overall very happy. Full transparency I only made $21 at my last shop and moving here was a $10 jump so in the scheme of things I am doing way better then I was. The goal is to have my own shop one day anyways so will keep learning and working towards that!
In other news I have some super trick parts coming for my park bike
OP
trytochaseme
Well-known member
Well the robot ran its first night lights out and it ran great! Super excited to be able to wrap that project up. Well I can't wash my hands with it but now it requires very little work to keep it going.
There was a lot of fine tuning and small details that it took to get it all working great. Thought I might share a few of these things, it might get nerdy as we take a brief dive into some G code.
This lower receiver is done in 2 OPs. The first operation is on the 5 Axis trunion and does about 95% of the work. OP2 is just a vise on the table and finishes up the back side.
Here is OP1
You may notice that not a lot of material is being held onto. This was a large issue for a bit. The company setting up the robot wanted me to hold onto more material. They said no one else has held onto this little. Its only about 0.08" and they want 1/4". The engineers I worked with told me I could go thinner then 1/4 but that I went too far. You may ask why is this an issue? Well with the serated inserts I put on it I had enough clamping force that I could machine it no problem. It definitely took some tweaking to make work but I got it down to where I am hogging very well and it stays put. I may have tossed a few parts out before I got it perfected but thats part of the process .
The robot uses these jaws as the grippers to grab the material and the robot does not have the same clamping power as the vises. When we were first setting up the robot it would drop the raw stock when it was moving it around. So they really wanted me to go thicker on the material. This was really not an option as thicker material would end up costing us north of $100,000 a year. After explaining that they were all on board to help us make this work. We were able to swap out the grippers that were on the robot to a new set from schunk that had more clamping force. Wouldn't ya know it but then she was working like a charm.
The next issue was working around an off the shelf robot package. The parts we are doing are bigger then what they usually set up in this package. You may noticed that the part is right up flush against the front of the vise. Take a look how the robot grabs it.
Notice how the stock is about a 1/2" from the front of the jaws?
Well thats the farthest they can get the robot to go in the shelves. So what I had to setup was a custom routine at the beginning of the program that would open the haws up. Then an endmill would come in and push the block to the correct position, then the jaws would close back up.
The code for that looked like this
(Routine to push block to correct position)
M130 -> this would tell the machine that it is okay to do feed moves with out the spindle running
G15 H01 G0 A0 B0 -> This would position the vises so its located straight on the Y axis and easy to push
G0 Y9.0
G56 Z.5 HA -> This is calling out my tool offset and getting tool in position behind stock and reading to push
X-2.
(Opens Vise)
CALL O9002 FIXT=1 FCOM=3 -> This would call a program from the robot that would talk to the vises. FIXT=1 means I want Vise 1 and
G1 Y8.27 F40 FCOM=3 means i want it to open up
Y8.5 -> This is what would feed the endmill in to Y8.27 which pushes the stock right up to that front edge
(Closes Vise) It would then feed back to Y8.5 to give it some clearance
CALL O9002 FIXT=1 FCOM=2 -> This is the same program for the vises, now FCOM=2 Means I want it to close the vises
M131 -> M131 cancels out the M130 from the beginning meaning it is no longer allowed to do feed moves without.
G0 X-10. the spindle running and then the X-10. is to move off to the side for clearance before continuing
With automation we want as much redundancy as we can get so we don't walk in in the morning and it made a bunch of bad parts over night. The okuma has built in tool life management. For example my tool 1 is a 1/2" 3 flute endmill that I use for all the roughing. I am pushing it really hard so it only last about 100 parts. I have in the okuma controller it set to last for 90 parts. After I run that tool, before it changes to the next tool I insert this code
TLCO Q01
This tells the controller I just ran 1 part. It will keep track and when it hits 90 it will then declare that that tool is bad. The machine will then stop the next time you try to run that tool. I can also set backup tools. I have another tool #101 that is the exact same as #1. In the controller I tell them that #1 and #101 are in a group. What the controller then does when #1 hits its life max of 90 it will then default too #101 automatically. This lets you have backups and don't have to worry about swapping out those tools as often. I can set up 3 or 4 or however many backup I want for a single tool or for multiple. It just depends on how many open spaces I have in the tool changer.
Along the same lines of redundancy and tool life I have added in some macros. At the very beginning of the program I set these 2 variables
VC66=VC66+1
VC67=VC67+1
Variable #66 and #67 I use as counters. Everytime the program starts it adds 1 to each of those. What I want to do is check some tools every 5 parts and others every 10.
I have designated #66 as my counter for every 10 and #67 for every 5. At the end of the program I have this
N21
IF[VC66 GT 10] N211 -> This is checking if #66 is greater than 10. If it is it will go to line N211 and it will reset #66 back to 0. If it is not
greater then 0 then it will go to line N212
GOTO N212
N211
VC66=0
N212
IF [VC67 GT 5] N213. -> This is doing the same but checking if #67 if greater than 5, if it is it resets it, if not it will just skip to line N214
GOTO N214
N213
VC67=0
N214
M09
Hopefully that makes sense, all they are are counters. Everytime the program runs it adds to the counters and then they get reset at either 10 or 5. The important part is what we do in between those
I can use those to then tell the machine when to check tools. For instance I have some drills that I want to check every 5 parts. So after i drill the holes, before it changes to the next tool we have this code.
IF[VC67 LT 5] N190 -> This is checking if #67 is less than 5. IF it is less than 5 it will go to N190 which would be to continue with the program
and go onto the next tool
CALL OCHCK1 -> If #67 is greater than 5 then it will run the sub program I named OCHCK
all OCHCK1 is this
OCHCK1
CALL O9858 PH=0.005 PT=VATOL
RTS
O9858 is a subprogram from renishaw that checks the tool on the touchsetter. PH=.005 is the tolerance I have given it, it will check the tool and aslong as the length is within .005 of its current set length it will continue on with the program. If the tool is outside of that then the machine will stop and the red light will flash to let the operator know there is an issue. It will show an alarm that says "TOOL BROKEN".
PT=VATOL is telling the touchsetter what tool its checking. Normally you will put a number there of what tool you are using like 1 or 2. The reason I have VATOL in there is that VATOL will automatically pull whatever tool is in the spindle so that way I can use that same sub program for all the tools instead of having to have a different one each tool #. I also have 2 different OCHCK subprograms. OCHCK1 and OCHCK2. The difference is just tolerances. One is .005 and one is .01 just gives me different options for different tools.
You may be wondering then if I can have backup tools can I make it so if it checks the tool and its bad it will go to the backup tool instead of stopping the machine? the answer is hell yea we can! It takes a little more work though. The only tool I have a back up for at the moment is that rougher #1. So after it runs I have this code
IF[VC66 LT 10] N20
(If current tool is T1)
IF[VATOL EQ 1]N11
(if current tool is T101)
IF[VATOL EQ 101] N15
(If current tool is T1 check and compares height)
N11
CALL O9858 PT=1.2
VC51=VTOHT[1,10001]
VC52=VTOHT[1,10002]
(Checks if tool wore more then .005")
IF[ABS[[VC51]-[VC52]]GT.005]N12
GOTO N20
(If current tool is T101 Check length, If bad Alarms out)
N15
CALL O9858 PH=0.005 PT=101
GOTO N20
(T1 is bad, mark as bad, switch to T101 and restart)
N12
VTLD3[1]=255
VTLD4[1]=255
M64
M6 T101
GOTO N10
N20
G90 G00 Z400.
G130
If anyone is still paying attention I will keep this simple, I can break it down more if anyone wants me too but basically what this is doing is checking tool #1. If tool number 1 is outside of its tolerance it will tell the controller that T1 is bad. It will then switch to T101 and then go back to N10 which is the beginning of the roughing. So if tool 1 runs and its bad it will switch tool T101 and then go back to the start and re run that section so that way incase the part is off it can fix it and the continue on.
Thats a lot of nerd stuff but it is really fun getting all this stuff sorted so that you can walk away from the machine at night and be confident when you come in the next day its still making good parts. The next level of this would be to check parts with the probe and then have it auto compensate and re run to fix parts that are out of spec. I can get into that next if there is any interest but I am not sure if any of what I said makes sense or if it just looks like a bunch of random numbers and letters
To finish this off here is what OP2 looks like after the part has been flipped over and is about to run to finish the part.
In the next post I will go over a few of the issues we had getting this operation to run smoothly.
There was a lot of fine tuning and small details that it took to get it all working great. Thought I might share a few of these things, it might get nerdy as we take a brief dive into some G code.
This lower receiver is done in 2 OPs. The first operation is on the 5 Axis trunion and does about 95% of the work. OP2 is just a vise on the table and finishes up the back side.
Here is OP1
You may notice that not a lot of material is being held onto. This was a large issue for a bit. The company setting up the robot wanted me to hold onto more material. They said no one else has held onto this little. Its only about 0.08" and they want 1/4". The engineers I worked with told me I could go thinner then 1/4 but that I went too far. You may ask why is this an issue? Well with the serated inserts I put on it I had enough clamping force that I could machine it no problem. It definitely took some tweaking to make work but I got it down to where I am hogging very well and it stays put. I may have tossed a few parts out before I got it perfected but thats part of the process
.The robot uses these jaws as the grippers to grab the material and the robot does not have the same clamping power as the vises. When we were first setting up the robot it would drop the raw stock when it was moving it around. So they really wanted me to go thicker on the material. This was really not an option as thicker material would end up costing us north of $100,000 a year. After explaining that they were all on board to help us make this work. We were able to swap out the grippers that were on the robot to a new set from schunk that had more clamping force. Wouldn't ya know it but then she was working like a charm.
The next issue was working around an off the shelf robot package. The parts we are doing are bigger then what they usually set up in this package. You may noticed that the part is right up flush against the front of the vise. Take a look how the robot grabs it.
Notice how the stock is about a 1/2" from the front of the jaws?
Well thats the farthest they can get the robot to go in the shelves. So what I had to setup was a custom routine at the beginning of the program that would open the haws up. Then an endmill would come in and push the block to the correct position, then the jaws would close back up.
The code for that looked like this
(Routine to push block to correct position)
M130 -> this would tell the machine that it is okay to do feed moves with out the spindle running
G15 H01 G0 A0 B0 -> This would position the vises so its located straight on the Y axis and easy to push
G0 Y9.0
G56 Z.5 HA -> This is calling out my tool offset and getting tool in position behind stock and reading to push
X-2.
(Opens Vise)
CALL O9002 FIXT=1 FCOM=3 -> This would call a program from the robot that would talk to the vises. FIXT=1 means I want Vise 1 and
G1 Y8.27 F40 FCOM=3 means i want it to open up
Y8.5 -> This is what would feed the endmill in to Y8.27 which pushes the stock right up to that front edge
(Closes Vise) It would then feed back to Y8.5 to give it some clearance
CALL O9002 FIXT=1 FCOM=2 -> This is the same program for the vises, now FCOM=2 Means I want it to close the vises
M131 -> M131 cancels out the M130 from the beginning meaning it is no longer allowed to do feed moves without.
G0 X-10. the spindle running and then the X-10. is to move off to the side for clearance before continuing
With automation we want as much redundancy as we can get so we don't walk in in the morning and it made a bunch of bad parts over night. The okuma has built in tool life management. For example my tool 1 is a 1/2" 3 flute endmill that I use for all the roughing. I am pushing it really hard so it only last about 100 parts. I have in the okuma controller it set to last for 90 parts. After I run that tool, before it changes to the next tool I insert this code
TLCO Q01
This tells the controller I just ran 1 part. It will keep track and when it hits 90 it will then declare that that tool is bad. The machine will then stop the next time you try to run that tool. I can also set backup tools. I have another tool #101 that is the exact same as #1. In the controller I tell them that #1 and #101 are in a group. What the controller then does when #1 hits its life max of 90 it will then default too #101 automatically. This lets you have backups and don't have to worry about swapping out those tools as often. I can set up 3 or 4 or however many backup I want for a single tool or for multiple. It just depends on how many open spaces I have in the tool changer.
Along the same lines of redundancy and tool life I have added in some macros. At the very beginning of the program I set these 2 variables
VC66=VC66+1
VC67=VC67+1
Variable #66 and #67 I use as counters. Everytime the program starts it adds 1 to each of those. What I want to do is check some tools every 5 parts and others every 10.
I have designated #66 as my counter for every 10 and #67 for every 5. At the end of the program I have this
N21
IF[VC66 GT 10] N211 -> This is checking if #66 is greater than 10. If it is it will go to line N211 and it will reset #66 back to 0. If it is not
greater then 0 then it will go to line N212
GOTO N212
N211
VC66=0
N212
IF [VC67 GT 5] N213. -> This is doing the same but checking if #67 if greater than 5, if it is it resets it, if not it will just skip to line N214
GOTO N214
N213
VC67=0
N214
M09
Hopefully that makes sense, all they are are counters. Everytime the program runs it adds to the counters and then they get reset at either 10 or 5. The important part is what we do in between those
I can use those to then tell the machine when to check tools. For instance I have some drills that I want to check every 5 parts. So after i drill the holes, before it changes to the next tool we have this code.
IF[VC67 LT 5] N190 -> This is checking if #67 is less than 5. IF it is less than 5 it will go to N190 which would be to continue with the program
and go onto the next tool
CALL OCHCK1 -> If #67 is greater than 5 then it will run the sub program I named OCHCK
all OCHCK1 is this
OCHCK1
CALL O9858 PH=0.005 PT=VATOL
RTS
O9858 is a subprogram from renishaw that checks the tool on the touchsetter. PH=.005 is the tolerance I have given it, it will check the tool and aslong as the length is within .005 of its current set length it will continue on with the program. If the tool is outside of that then the machine will stop and the red light will flash to let the operator know there is an issue. It will show an alarm that says "TOOL BROKEN".
PT=VATOL is telling the touchsetter what tool its checking. Normally you will put a number there of what tool you are using like 1 or 2. The reason I have VATOL in there is that VATOL will automatically pull whatever tool is in the spindle so that way I can use that same sub program for all the tools instead of having to have a different one each tool #. I also have 2 different OCHCK subprograms. OCHCK1 and OCHCK2. The difference is just tolerances. One is .005 and one is .01 just gives me different options for different tools.
You may be wondering then if I can have backup tools can I make it so if it checks the tool and its bad it will go to the backup tool instead of stopping the machine? the answer is hell yea we can! It takes a little more work though. The only tool I have a back up for at the moment is that rougher #1. So after it runs I have this code
IF[VC66 LT 10] N20
(If current tool is T1)
IF[VATOL EQ 1]N11
(if current tool is T101)
IF[VATOL EQ 101] N15
(If current tool is T1 check and compares height)
N11
CALL O9858 PT=1.2
VC51=VTOHT[1,10001]
VC52=VTOHT[1,10002]
(Checks if tool wore more then .005")
IF[ABS[[VC51]-[VC52]]GT.005]N12
GOTO N20
(If current tool is T101 Check length, If bad Alarms out)
N15
CALL O9858 PH=0.005 PT=101
GOTO N20
(T1 is bad, mark as bad, switch to T101 and restart)
N12
VTLD3[1]=255
VTLD4[1]=255
M64
M6 T101
GOTO N10
N20
G90 G00 Z400.
G130
If anyone is still paying attention I will keep this simple, I can break it down more if anyone wants me too but basically what this is doing is checking tool #1. If tool number 1 is outside of its tolerance it will tell the controller that T1 is bad. It will then switch to T101 and then go back to N10 which is the beginning of the roughing. So if tool 1 runs and its bad it will switch tool T101 and then go back to the start and re run that section so that way incase the part is off it can fix it and the continue on.
Thats a lot of nerd stuff but it is really fun getting all this stuff sorted so that you can walk away from the machine at night and be confident when you come in the next day its still making good parts. The next level of this would be to check parts with the probe and then have it auto compensate and re run to fix parts that are out of spec. I can get into that next if there is any interest but I am not sure if any of what I said makes sense or if it just looks like a bunch of random numbers and letters
To finish this off here is what OP2 looks like after the part has been flipped over and is about to run to finish the part.
In the next post I will go over a few of the issues we had getting this operation to run smoothly.
bugnut
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Your programming is quite cool. I'd be using the probe for a lot more checking, the hole diameters and such. Then if the machine has a load meter I'd be doing tool changes based on load instead of part count. As I glance it looks like you have a pretty empty table, I would look at how to machine a group of parts from solid stock and then use the robot hand to move to op 2/20.
Plus I'd be moving away from standard cutters to those specific to the material with longer wear life.
Looks like you are making parts and shortened cycle time, always a good Idea. And having fun doing it!!
Plus I'd be moving away from standard cutters to those specific to the material with longer wear life.
Looks like you are making parts and shortened cycle time, always a good Idea. And having fun doing it!!
OP
trytochaseme
Well-known member
I am using the probe for checking parts. We have run enough of these and have it dialed in enough that very very rarely do things start coming out of spec. So I have a few specific features that are checked in the machine every so many parts. First and last part in each batch also go through a more in depth check on a CMM.
We nest multiple parts in one block for some other stuff but on these I machine 5 sides in OP10 and just finish the 6th side in the OP20 so if i nested them it would end up adding more ops to be able to finish them. We have the stock size down to as small as we can go to save on wasted material. I am working on getting an extrusion so that way our wasted material is cut down by 90% and run time is reduced. I do have all aluminum specific tooling in this as well.
OP
trytochaseme
Well-known member
On a whim I kinda ended up buying a new bike frame lol
Been wanting one of these for awhile and found a good deal on a barely used 22'. Works out well because I will rebuild my transition smuggler for my wife.
I swapped all the parts over from the smuggler. Its setup single speed for now well I wait for drivetrain to come in. Some parts well end up going back on the smuggler. Rest of the smuggler will be lower end parts, if my wife ends up riding more then I can upgrade it more. Will also be nice to have a spare bike I can have others ride.
Here it was on its maiden voyage at a local little jump line
Machined an adapater for the dinner plate rotor finally
Also playing around with some crank designs
Been wanting one of these for awhile and found a good deal on a barely used 22'. Works out well because I will rebuild my transition smuggler for my wife.
I swapped all the parts over from the smuggler. Its setup single speed for now well I wait for drivetrain to come in. Some parts well end up going back on the smuggler. Rest of the smuggler will be lower end parts, if my wife ends up riding more then I can upgrade it more. Will also be nice to have a spare bike I can have others ride.
Here it was on its maiden voyage at a local little jump line
Machined an adapater for the dinner plate rotor finally
Also playing around with some crank designs
solo machinist
Well-known member
You've got some mad programming skills dude! Love your work.