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Are you a heat manager?

I am. :(

Seems everything I do lately requires I preheat and maintain constant temperature. I come in first thing and start running warmup proggys.

At first I just ran the warmups, then ran my cuts. Life was simple back then...2-3 months ago lol.

Now, I think about average rpm's I'm gonna be running, and try to limit the warmup to those rpm's. I think about run times and try to warmup spindles relative to those times. I lazer the tools at the rpm's they will run at, and as I lazer them, I pause them as needed to get the right warmup relative to what I think will happen to that tool.

One machine I run empty till It's repeating (at run temperature), at that point I cut, and I dont stop, trying to have the same downtime (cool time) part to part.

Doing this I can achieve a tenth or two most of the time. (Of course I'm talking about milling). And providing you aren't effected by the heat shrink gimmic, especially on cat spindles, they hold heat or cold for a long time, gotta get them to room temp before lazering them after using the heat shrink machine.

***

Lathe....Don't know yet. At the moment I do no warmup, there is no warmup program. I got 2hrs training from a guy that only sets up, doesnt run, and he never mentioned it. Soon I will be hardcutting, and these parts have tolerances of +0 -.0002 on diameters, so maybe I should be doing warmups? Any siggestions on the lathe warmup? Should I bother doing x-z moves or just warm up the spindle?

Also: We have a makino that warms up the spindle empty. Anybody got any views on that?

Reply to
vinny
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Yes.

Also to start with, on diameters where you need to hold .0002" run two finish passes, both passes with the exact same cutting conditions. Place M00 stop after first pass, check diameter make any necessary wear offset so the finish pass will end up on the mean. After you get used to the machine and you know what it can hold you may wish to replace the M00 with M01.

You will find that an oversize (finished) OD of .0001-.0003" is not always as easy as rerunning the last finish pass with a wear offset .

0001-.0003" and still hold your .0002" tolerance. Tool height is absolutely critical in a situation like this. That is why I recommend you use M00 and inspect the diameters first, till you know what the machine can handle.

Run spindle up and down it's range with Turret (safely) indexing (bi- directional) at tool change position, run the turret X & Z.

Prefer to chuck on something whenever the spindle is running.

Reply to
noneya

When the machine is fully warmed up and repeating, set a mag base test indicator at a turret location, tool holder, or tool. Program the turret to hit zero on the indicator, pause 1 second, return to home and repeat. Now go ahead and shut the machine down. Next day run your program at the indicator. Whatever it reads multiply times 2 and offset that amount in your wear page. Let your machine warm up by running a part. The machine won't make any sudden changes, perhaps a tenth or two per part. In a few parts your offset is back to zero and your machine is back to where it was. Or you could run your test program as a warm up program until the indicator is back to zero. Most slant beds drop anywhere from .0005 to .002 when they are cold. They all warm up slowly and shouldn't take longer than an hour to warm up. Do you want to waste that time or accurately predict where your machine is and make parts during warm up?

Reply to
Bill

Nice post, Bill.

Reply to
PrecisionmachinisT

Thank you Sam.

Reply to
Bill

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