Recent content by dsj

I've only had to make one set but I used a 60deg chamfer mill. Worked just fine. The jaws were 6061 so I didn't have any issue with knocking the tip of the tool off. YMMV in steel.

Fair enough. Was half-joking anyway. We're also a laser shop but the customer wasn't interested in having them cut that way. We'll price it fairly but if they think it's too high and go elsewhere, that's fine by me.

I have a few of those downcut routers that I use on some slippery plastics. Things work great but they don't leave the greatest finish on the floor of a part. Thankfully it's not a concern with these.

Just the top, and either air or dry. Custom tools for sure, I'd rather not go around these parts more than once. Anything to save a few seconds will really add up. It's fairly easy to hold a good tolerance in polycarb, it doesn't move much. Aside from that, you nailed it. Hopefully we'll...

I can't show the part, but I can describe it with overall tolerances of +/-.005". It's .060" clear polycarbonate, 2.618" x 5.118" with a single .537" (+.01"/-.005") hole near the center. Each sheet of 8 parts will have screen printing on one surface before I get them. Each part requires a...

I've been asked to quote cutting 100k parts from customer supplied .060" polycarbonate sheet. The sheets are 12"x12" and there's eight parts per sheet. I figure the easiest way to hold something that thin and floppy would be with a vacuum plate/pallet system of some sort. The problem is that I...

If you're trying the dynamic optirough or any of their dynamic toolpaths, try using avoidance geometry instead of containment. Always worked for me when doing similar things.

What I've done in cases like this is to transform each tool separately to do the parts on a plate, then transform all of the transformed toolpaths together to another WCS. I'm sure there's a better way to word that, but it's Monday and early

Concerning heat, last summer we had a bit of a heat wave (105+ in the shop daily) and our mill had no issues. It's a bit of a weenie mill though and rarely does any strenuous activity so it ran just fine. Our lathe had issues, one day the hydraulic temp would get too high and the next day it...

It's odd that M143/M144 are listed as "Secondary Spindle Fwd" etc. when you can't use them with G14. I'd think it wouldn't matter which spindle is set as "main" - subspindle commands should only affect the sub. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me but I'm sure they had some reason to do that...

Well, I'm a Haas user but I've never used one of their lathes with a sub, so take what I say with a chunk of salt. Flipping through the manual, it does seem to imply that G14/G15 are needed to cut anything on the sub. I'm guessing M143/M144/M145 are used to make the sub turn in preparation for...

The whole thing looks more like a mid-stage prototype than a final production machine. Or maybe this will end up being their "toolroom" low-cost mill/turn?

Mastercam doesn't really care as long as the TPI is correct. It could be a 12.9335-18 and it'll calculate the correct feed. Of course the simulation may look at little... odd, but it should still output good code.

I have a question for you Mr. CNC. I was going to ask via PM, but then I thought other folks might be curious as well. How does one get into the optics field? It sounds fascinating from what little I've seen. I know I'm not even remotely qualified for the job, only milling and turning...

Our shop has a Haas ST-30 lathe and I have a lengthy bar-feed job coming up that has an odd-shaped inside bore. I've done short runs of this part before and occasionally chips will get stuck inside the bore causing all sorts of "interesting" problems. Chatter is most common and broken inserts...