It is so sad seeing that people would give a thumbs down to a video like this. Especially since it is a video that is there to help pass along knowledge and shows what works and doesn’t so that we can become better by grasping things that we might have overlooked and plant that seed in our heads. I love all your videos and thank you for posting interesting content and maybe show us a different way to tackle jobs that may be similar to this. I guess you can never get rid of all the trolls. And as always, haters will always hate.
For high volume production I would saw roundstock blanks. Turn OD, faces, & center hole. Mill pockets, clamping to fixture plate, locating on a pin in the center hole. You can even chamfer both sides in the same operation if you use a double angled chamfer tool and there is enough relief in your fixture.
Right click on optimal load > edit expression. You'll see a text box with "tool diameter * .3" , Edit it with whatever % of tool engagement you want. In your case .2 for 20%. This way you don't need to open up a calculator every time. Keep up the great videos John!!
For a few off I would make the vacuum fixture and put some thin slots going all the way round maybe make another jig as a mold to put silicon in to make the gasket?? In a production run I would consider using round bar, turn to diameter, face, chamfer, drill and ream then part off about 0.015" over size, put in soft jaws and face and chamfer other side to the thickness. go over to the mill and use a shoulder bolt to hold in fixture to machine the one side, and have a jig to align it like you have designed but with a shoulder bolt to hold in place to chamfer the other side
Thanks John. I have been cutting air for hours with multiple adaptive tool paths with rest machining. Could't get it to work properly with stock to leave. Thanks for explaining the math behind it!
depending on stock size you could get a "back side" chamfer tool and chamfer from the front which would eliminate the clocking issue and probably come out pretty well then just deck the back side. I do that on quite a few parts I make.
We use a plate with m5 holes spaced 10mm appart. we drill around the part and screw in onto the plate. Then mill the part out and keep 0.2mm in depth. Then just break out the part en debur the part.
Sweet video again John! I'm actually making some parts right now that are very similar- probably a dozen ways to make them so glad you shared how you'd approach this task.
if the fixture does not work, have you considered using the same fixture except drilling and tapping the hole in the wheel, you can then clamp the part into the fixture with a bolt through your inlet hole. if you can use brass bolts due to they machine similarly to aluminium so there would be little effect on the tool hitting a harder material.
John just a couple of suggestions...first I would definitely start with round stock close to the finish O.D. Second lose the vacuum plate and make some soft jaws for your Kurt vise and hold it that way. Then you could do the first op complete. Also for a part like that you only need to program one of the pockets once then just rotate it 4 more times...so much faster than all the extra lines of code..even though your using the cam software. Then all you will have to do is face the back side to thickness either in a lathe or in another vice with soft jaws... all you have to worry about is the finish thickness dimension. Also you could cut all your round stock to rough thickness on your chop saw, or a cold saw if you have one...they hold size and squareness really well. But like most jobs in our line of work theres always more than one way to skin a cat. Good luckhowever you end up doing it.
I'm working while listening, so I may have this wrong. But it sounds like the 100 lbs is the force on the part, perpendicular to the plane it sits on. So to figure out how much force it would take to translate the part, you would use the coefficient of static friction- That is the normal force (100 lbs) times the coefficient of friction. If we just use 0.5 as the coefficient (which is probably close to reality), then the force to push the part would be 50 pounds. If you put 50 lbs side load on your 3/16" endmill, you would break it. As for rotation of the part, that's another calculation. But I'm betting you have enough force.
Why not clamp? destaco in a pocketed fixture clamp. or say 3 dowel pins for location (say 2 on top, one on left for location in X/Y) and then say 3x 10-32 truss head cap screws along the edge to hold the blank down. Put it in, clamp with 2-3 screws per edge to hold down, do first op, flip over, do second op
why not just water jet it? does it need a super nice finish? Can't you just use a few mighty bites? Looks like a laser or water jet job to me, put it through the grinder, then edge break it with a air sander
"Why not just use a $300,000 machine that you don't have?" I'm poking fun but seriously, most shops don't have and can't afford a waterjet :P We'll see how Wazer does, they might be starting to change that if their machine actually becomes available and viable. But until then...
Evan Bunke well we don't have a laser or water jet but we would send it out to someone who does. They get better discounts on sheet metal and the time to cut one out is about 1 minute compared to 5 minutes of CNC time. That's not including fixturing and and setup for CNC that is considerably less time and effort for a water jet. we could probably get those cut out of stainless (the only material I know the price in my head RN) for about $4 a piece, with the edges deburred
You're still gonna have to do work to cleanup the waterjetted blanks, so you're not really saving much. If you were running thousands of them, sure. If you're running a few, no way it's worth it to waterjet. Especially considering the number of CNC machines he's got sitting there idle at any given time.
I would personally start with round stock on a lathe, poke the center home thru, part off disks, then holy to a fixture in a vmc and pocket out the inside. Just a thought.
That would mean you would have to first run the lathe, then machine one side, then flip it to chamfer the other side. That is a whole lot more setup time IMO. That said there is no one right way to do anything and considering I don't have a lathe yet I could be completely wrong on my opinion of it.
pprotory Why would you have to flip it to chamfer the other side? Assuming you have Y axis lathe and live tooling, you can back chamfer the pockets via a 90 deg back chamfer tool. Easy done in a single setup. I'd just be worried about trying to cut off such thin material with those interrupted cuts in the pockets
Well that was in response to his comment. In his he said he would part off the discs before putting them into a VMC to do the pockets. I am assuming his lathe doesn't have the capability to machine the pockets which would need to be done before back chamfering any pockets. But yes you are correct in that case it would be faster.
pprotory you can back chamfer the outer edge as you part it off, then you simply need need to bolt it through the center hole to a mill fixture and pocket it out. this does not add an operation, in fact it would save time because while the lathe is parting off blanks, you can be milling finished blanks at the same time the lathe is running. this maintains the 2 operation result without the added uncertainty of his proposed second operation fixture.
Lathe OD and center hole and cut to thickness. Softjaws cut to OD, offset so center hole is over a softjaw. Drill and tap soft jaw for SHCS to hold center of part down while jaws keep the part from spinning.
With regular vise jaws sure you are correct but there are a whole slew of jaws available. I've done flywheels that were similar in thickness including stock from both aluminum and brass. I used talon grips for the raw and machinable versa grips when I flipped it. only need .060 of material for a great hold. **EDIT** The .060 is what mitee-bite claims and in my experience that has been correct. You can also use the talon/versa grips with a cam bolt on a fixture plate for production.
Start with round stock, turn it and drill it to take an indexed arbor. Make a fixture that will take the indexed arbor and support the part while also allowing for a full depth of cut. Once one side is done, just release the part and flip it and hit go on the chamfur operation again. You could make a gazillion of those parts quickly.
I would have personally cut the plates to the desired size to create the stock (squares a little bigger than 1 wheel). Then I would fly cut them to thickness. Double side tape (the really thin stuff that kinda looks like masking tape) your stock pieces together. Drill through your center hole and then ream it (for accurate positioning). This can be done on a drill press fairly quickly. Fasten down to a sacrificial piece of mdf with double sided tape (more tape might not be needed). As for fastening, turn a rod that is a tight fit in the center hole you reamed and turn threads on both ends. On one end you would turn a little bit of the thread off. The end that is fully threaded goes in the tnut and the other end gets a nut and washer on it. Locate zero off the part the threads were turned off of. After that machine it all out as one thick wheel. Toss in some hot water to soak for a bit and the tape will scrape off easily with a plastic putty knife. The addition of the tape is to prevent the pieces from shifting relative to each other and to take the flex out of it so the end mill doesn't pull up and make them flap.
Might be a noob question, but why not start with bar stock and machine in the pockets, then just turn the OD and part off the individual pieces? Like I said, total noob so I could be totally off base.
Too bad you don't have live tooling on the lathe? Start with round stock slightly oversize, rough and finish your pockets and centre hole, edge break pockets, turn O/D and part the piece off? De-burr the other side by hand? Would that work a little quicker or am i missing something
If I was to do this (apart from punch/dye) i'd cut blanks on a lathe, then just feed them into a mount 8 at a time. If the other side "had" to be machined, i'd use the right 4 mounts as the second pass on the reverse side.
I saw some sort of matting material on IG a while back maybe from one of the daytron guys feeds. I think its a sacrificial material that helps to seal parts to the table, maybe Pierson knows something about it?
To fine scrub in simulation just left click and drag left/right anywhere in the CAD view. ie, click and drag your mouse left and right over the simulation and it'll scrub nicely :)
well I am suspecting that what went wrong with teh vacuum plate is that on the bought plate you are laying the part on a rubber gasket that makes up for any microscopic surface imperfections and hence a great vacuum seal. but when you have aluminum part laying in aluminum plate/fixture, who knows how perfect the surfaces are for maintaining a vacuum? I was wondering if a layer of say 5w oil between the part and fixture then apply vacuum. I am suspecting the oil will make up for any imperfections between surfaces. Maybe you can redesign the vacuum fixture so that the part is laying on a gasket material of some sort. Mold some rubber in the plate, freeze it and then machine it to accept that part? Some ideas.
What I was told should work: when machining the first side, leave just a really thin layer at the bottom, maybe 5 to 10 thou or so. You also don't need to mill everything away, just the contours. Afterwards, you can just push the rest stock out and trim the bottom by deburring the edges, because it's so thin. Don't know how good this is for production, though, because it needs some manual labor. Sure, it might not be much, but it will be when you have hundreds or thousands ot parts.
Actually you dont need to do this extra drawed lines for your toolpath. I just tested it, you can use 2D-Contur with a Ramp, so it does a ramped 'lead in' (parallel to the contour) and then it will machine the whole contour and retract.
You're worried about the seal when you flip it over because you don't have a gasket. I was totally thinking the same as everyone else that says use some grease to complete the seal!
Why didn't you use yout CNC lathe? Would the parts not fit or is yours not capable of doing it? I'm just curios, because my way of going at it would be: round stock material, machining the inner slots with an inmill on the lathe(i dont know how to call this), and parting off the individual disks after that :) Why did you choose to do it your way?
Hi,Is there any Blog or website to guide the beginner of CNC operators online? For example; I show them my drawing and they help me how to make it by CNC machine???
1:15 Fail fast, fail cheap...Noted! Messed up at this part a ton of times! Also an outside shop didn't make the work to the spec they assured me they could and now I have to repair warped surfaces!
7:30 In Fusion I guess that's the thing with integrated everything. I can show a baller rendering of the part that I have designed just while I 'm working on a structural simulation or tweaking the part! It's awesome!
In a production setup, why wouldnt you just buy a 6 axis cnc and have it running fulltime? You have a lot of CNCs, surely if you scheduled tasks back to back you'd have the best ROI?
What's the deal with adaptive clearing? It often gives me like three times the estimated milling time compared to a 'standard' 3D pocket. I'm neither a Fusion 360 nor a milling expert so maybe this seems like a dumb question...
Fly cut the bottom side first, flip that to the vacuum plate/fixture and complete all machine jobs with the part as is. to chamfer the bottom side, don't that make a tool to do that? a chamfer mill that cuts on the top and bottom and just clean up all edges. wont have to flip and re-clock to chamfer edges nicely. Sorry I dont run CNCs, but this sounds do-able??
Hey John you mentioned this part reminds of the part back in your New York days. Was it that fish tank filter grate you made from I believe it was delrin. If not can you tell us what the part was that your sold a ton of. Thanks man.
I am not a machinist: what if you clamped it down to something like the fixture plates you're selling? I guess the main flaw with that idea is poor access to the sides and a couple of times refixturing and indicating.
Couldn't you just plasma cut the rough then machine out the final and have the run time go down quite a bit and keep it flat? Locate off the center using a spread mitee bite clamp, and have a removable dowel pin to locate a spoke
To what end? It's gonna be a mess. Still gonna require lots of cleanup machining, and facing off to the required thickness. In the long run, you'd be creating more work for yourself.
As for a production run? That's a punch press job all day long. Kerchunk kerchunk for about an hour and you'll have hundreds easily. You got an iron worker with enough capacity to run a punch and die that size right? Punch em out, throw in tumbler, rinse em, pack em, collect cheque. 😁
Tim Yuhas I'm personally not that skilled in making punch and dies. But simply example of a punch and die is a paper hole punch. The punch is the solid round rod that shears the paper and the die is the hole. Basically cut the punch and the die out of steel, harden it, and use a press to punch out the shapes. Metal working punch and dies require a bit of knowledge on die draft angles and punch shear angles etc. a tool and die maker would know better than me. But basic principle is a paper hole punch, just oversized and requiring a lot more force.
I understand the basics but a round hole or square or what ever "hole" is pretty basic stuff. When you get Into shapes and stuff the complexity goes through the roof. I've got the same iron worker as John and some old 60 ton punch presses and from my learnings it is ungodly expensive to have the "complex" tooling made for these. Yes you could spit out the 50 parts a day he wants to make in a minute but is that worth it for a 5 to 15k spent in tooling. For something like this that is flat I say go laser. And make a custom fixture to hold down the blank for chamfer if it needs it.
Oh I agree. I would never go punch and die for just 50 parts. 50,000 parts, you bet punch and die all the way. 50-100. Id come up with a multi part fixture on the mill.
thats exactly the spot laser cutting is for.not enough standard sized holes and contours in the part. i highly doubt that everything machined is really that important on this part. but if you only have a hammer every job looks like a nail... in this case its John with his milling machines ;)
So I am beginning to get what John is about. Its not like standing in front of your mentor. Its more like standing next to your class mate. Like "hey dude, I did it like this, how did you do it?" "Cool, looks good, I did it like this"
I think there is a lot of jealousy from veteran machinist that he has had business success. THAT is where he has well developed talent and skills. They can't do that so they give him hate for having the kind of business they always wanted but never wanted to learn business.
gus bisbal he's certainly business first machinist second. Personally as a veteran machinists with 16 years and counting in, I want no part of running my own business 😆
Double sided sticky tape. Tape a sheet of aluminum down right to the table, face entire sheet; skin it, just enough to clean up. Remove sheet from table with alcohol and tape machined side back down to the table. Face the sheet to thickness. Run part toolpaths +.005 from table on the Z. The tape is approximately .01 thick with a surprising degree of consistency. This can run one part or however many parts you can fit on your table, unattended. No fixture needed, no expensive vacuum plate needed (although very cool), all sides machined. The larger the surface area taped down, the heavier the cuts you can take. Seriously, double sided sticky tape.
Geoffry e I can totally agree with you, I would also put something like masking tape in between the aluminium and the double sided tape, so you can pull it all of really easy. and I would take a sheet of metal as big as the machining table is, so you can do as many parts at a time as possible. for example, I work with 2 cnc portal mills with a 2x3meter table, so i could produce maybe more than 500 pieces in one process, but thats to big for taping it, but I leave just small bridges to let the pieces attached to the sheet. sorry for my bad english by the way
Raik Kuntze what kind of double sided tape have you had success with? I had a project where I used it and it held the part fabulously. However, the removal process was a nightmare and I swore off the stuff. If you use masking tape to help removing the part, what do you do on the table/fixture side?
Sometimes it can be a pain to remove, I will admit. You've got to learn through trial and error how little tape you can get away with based on your application to ease the removal process. Best way to remove is to soak the edges of the finished part with alcohol and let it sit for a minute and then pry it up. The alcohol neutralizes the adhesive. I have had luck with 3M industrial double sided tape.
Personally I'm not a huge fan of vacuum in general. I have a hard time trusting it. I would have clamped the edges, machined the interior features, put clamps inside and skim the outside. If you want to cut down that time you could make a fixture to simplify it
part has outside radiius. hole. 2 lines 6 inside radius. that can be mirrored. why need cam lol. so many. i dont like that. why cam do it lol.part is here cut it without collision. dont tell me there is collision becouse cam is so smart it not do them. red alarms should not be in there. so easy part amd it come so complex G0 G1 G2 G3 all you need and G68 coordinate turn to mill other pockets. no need cam do all when make one and
There really is no such thing as a vacuum hold down its the ~14PSI atmospheric pressure (less in Denver) that is loading the part against the plate. I would suggest using tabs and a custom clamping fixture. 1. Cut the spokes first, including the finish pass, center hole and chamfers. 2. Cut the OD last with leaving .025" thick tabs (or how ever thin works), leave minimal stock for finish profile pass also do the OD chamfer allowing for the not yet done OD profile finish pass. 3. Clip the tabs, flip it over use the center hole to hold the part. (part will need to be clocked by a fixture feature) 4. Gently trim the tabs, do the OD finish pass then the second side chamfers. 5. Manually chamfer second side center hole. Multiple parts could be done on a large vacuum plate for steps 1,2. Craig Just an amatuer's $.02 worth.
Craig S This is what I was thinking too, in part because I don't have a vacuum plate. I think tabs would be a good way to go (thick enough to allow for bottom side ops), than flip the material before cutting the tabs, than mill to thickness, than chamfer, than hold down through center hole on the fixture, than finishing contour to remove the tabs. Use the center of the stock as the origin so when you flip the part the toolpaths "match" up no matter if the stock isn't precisely what you entered in CAM. One of Johns new fixture plates could be used for this if you center the holes using the correct spacing, or a very large table sized fixture with the needed tapped holes could be made to help production.
It is so sad seeing that people would give a thumbs down to a video like this. Especially since it is a video that is there to help pass along knowledge and shows what works and doesn’t so that we can become better by grasping things that we might have overlooked and plant that seed in our heads. I love all your videos and thank you for posting interesting content and maybe show us a different way to tackle jobs that may be similar to this. I guess you can never get rid of all the trolls. And as always, haters will always hate.
John in the base of your 2nd op fixture mill some small vacuum channels and use a thick grease sparingly to seal the vacuum in
I was thinking the same thing , or if making a lot of them use silicone on either side of vacuum channel in recessed grooves.
For high volume production I would saw roundstock blanks. Turn OD, faces, & center hole. Mill pockets, clamping to fixture plate, locating on a pin in the center hole. You can even chamfer both sides in the same operation if you use a double angled chamfer tool and there is enough relief in your fixture.
Right click on optimal load > edit expression. You'll see a text box with "tool diameter * .3" ,
Edit it with whatever % of tool engagement you want. In your case .2 for 20%. This way you don't need to open up a calculator every time.
Keep up the great videos John!!
For a few off I would make the vacuum fixture and put some thin slots going all the way round maybe make another jig as a mold to put silicon in to make the gasket??
In a production run I would consider using round bar, turn to diameter, face, chamfer, drill and ream then part off about 0.015" over size, put in soft jaws and face and chamfer other side to the thickness. go over to the mill and use a shoulder bolt to hold in fixture to machine the one side, and have a jig to align it like you have designed but with a shoulder bolt to hold in place to chamfer the other side
Thanks John. I have been cutting air for hours with multiple adaptive tool paths with rest machining. Could't get it to work properly with stock to leave. Thanks for explaining the math behind it!
depending on stock size you could get a "back side" chamfer tool and chamfer from the front which would eliminate the clocking issue and probably come out pretty well then just deck the back side. I do that on quite a few parts I make.
We use a plate with m5 holes spaced 10mm appart. we drill around the part and screw in onto the plate. Then mill the part out and keep 0.2mm in depth. Then just break out the part en debur the part.
Sweet video again John! I'm actually making some parts right now that are very similar- probably a dozen ways to make them so glad you shared how you'd approach this task.
if the fixture does not work, have you considered using the same fixture except drilling and tapping the hole in the wheel, you can then clamp the part into the fixture with a bolt through your inlet hole. if you can use brass bolts due to they machine similarly to aluminium so there would be little effect on the tool hitting a harder material.
John just a couple of suggestions...first I would definitely start with round stock close to the finish O.D. Second lose the vacuum plate and make some soft jaws for your Kurt vise and hold it that way. Then you could do the first op complete. Also for a part like that you only need to program one of the pockets once then just rotate it 4 more times...so much faster than all the extra lines of code..even though your using the cam software. Then all you will have to do is face the back side to thickness either in a lathe or in another vice with soft jaws... all you have to worry about is the finish thickness dimension. Also you could cut all your round stock to rough thickness on your chop saw, or a cold saw if you have one...they hold size and squareness really well. But like most jobs in our line of work theres always more than one way to skin a cat. Good luckhowever you end up doing it.
I have been making much smaller parts by hand in various alloy ..very tricky, great vid,, wish I had a CNC
I'm working while listening, so I may have this wrong. But it sounds like the 100 lbs is the force on the part, perpendicular to the plane it sits on. So to figure out how much force it would take to translate the part, you would use the coefficient of static friction- That is the normal force (100 lbs) times the coefficient of friction. If we just use 0.5 as the coefficient (which is probably close to reality), then the force to push the part would be 50 pounds. If you put 50 lbs side load on your 3/16" endmill, you would break it. As for rotation of the part, that's another calculation. But I'm betting you have enough force.
Why not clamp? destaco in a pocketed fixture clamp. or say 3 dowel pins for location (say 2 on top, one on left for location in X/Y) and then say 3x 10-32 truss head cap screws along the edge to hold the blank down. Put it in, clamp with 2-3 screws per edge to hold down, do first op, flip over, do second op
why not just water jet it? does it need a super nice finish? Can't you just use a few mighty bites? Looks like a laser or water jet job to me, put it through the grinder, then edge break it with a air sander
"Why not just use a $300,000 machine that you don't have?"
I'm poking fun but seriously, most shops don't have and can't afford a waterjet :P
We'll see how Wazer does, they might be starting to change that if their machine actually becomes available and viable. But until then...
Evan Bunke well we don't have a laser or water jet but we would send it out to someone who does. They get better discounts on sheet metal and the time to cut one out is about 1 minute compared to 5 minutes of CNC time. That's not including fixturing and and setup for CNC that is considerably less time and effort for a water jet. we could probably get those cut out of stainless (the only material I know the price in my head RN) for about $4 a piece, with the edges deburred
You're still gonna have to do work to cleanup the waterjetted blanks, so you're not really saving much.
If you were running thousands of them, sure.
If you're running a few, no way it's worth it to waterjet. Especially considering the number of CNC machines he's got sitting there idle at any given time.
Wrenchmonkey that's true. Like I said it depends on what the finish quality needs to be
I would personally start with round stock on a lathe, poke the center home thru, part off disks, then holy to a fixture in a vmc and pocket out the inside. Just a thought.
That would mean you would have to first run the lathe, then machine one side, then flip it to chamfer the other side. That is a whole lot more setup time IMO. That said there is no one right way to do anything and considering I don't have a lathe yet I could be completely wrong on my opinion of it.
pprotory
Why would you have to flip it to chamfer the other side?
Assuming you have Y axis lathe and live tooling, you can back chamfer the pockets via a 90 deg back chamfer tool. Easy done in a single setup. I'd just be worried about trying to cut off such thin material with those interrupted cuts in the pockets
Well that was in response to his comment. In his he said he would part off the discs before putting them into a VMC to do the pockets. I am assuming his lathe doesn't have the capability to machine the pockets which would need to be done before back chamfering any pockets. But yes you are correct in that case it would be faster.
it just goes to show there is more than one way to skin a cat.
pprotory you can back chamfer the outer edge as you part it off, then you simply need need to bolt it through the center hole to a mill fixture and pocket it out. this does not add an operation, in fact it would save time because while the lathe is parting off blanks, you can be milling finished blanks at the same time the lathe is running. this maintains the 2 operation result without the added uncertainty of his proposed second operation fixture.
Lathe OD and center hole and cut to thickness.
Softjaws cut to OD, offset so center hole is over a softjaw. Drill and tap soft jaw for SHCS to hold center of part down while jaws keep the part from spinning.
With regular vise jaws sure you are correct but there are a whole slew of jaws available. I've done flywheels that were similar in thickness including stock from both aluminum and brass. I used talon grips for the raw and machinable versa grips when I flipped it. only need .060 of material for a great hold.
**EDIT** The .060 is what mitee-bite claims and in my experience that has been correct. You can also use the talon/versa grips with a cam bolt on a fixture plate for production.
Start with round stock, turn it and drill it to take an indexed arbor. Make a fixture that will take the indexed arbor and support the part while also allowing for a full depth of cut. Once one side is done, just release the part and flip it and hit go on the chamfur operation again. You could make a gazillion of those parts quickly.
Augh, can't believe I gotta wait a week to see the fixture! :)
Rick i hate those chiphangers
Great video John, and nice to see the 770 in action!
What about some high-viscosity grease to act as a sealant? Or a whiff of low-strength loctite?
I would have personally cut the plates to the desired size to create the stock (squares a little bigger than 1 wheel). Then I would fly cut them to thickness. Double side tape (the really thin stuff that kinda looks like masking tape) your stock pieces together. Drill through your center hole and then ream it (for accurate positioning). This can be done on a drill press fairly quickly. Fasten down to a sacrificial piece of mdf with double sided tape (more tape might not be needed). As for fastening, turn a rod that is a tight fit in the center hole you reamed and turn threads on both ends. On one end you would turn a little bit of the thread off. The end that is fully threaded goes in the tnut and the other end gets a nut and washer on it. Locate zero off the part the threads were turned off of. After that machine it all out as one thick wheel. Toss in some hot water to soak for a bit and the tape will scrape off easily with a plastic putty knife. The addition of the tape is to prevent the pieces from shifting relative to each other and to take the flex out of it so the end mill doesn't pull up and make them flap.
Nice to see the 770 running.
Eating this stuff up. Thank you John.
no gasket? try using a little vacuum grease! super thick, but it will help seal.
Might be a noob question, but why not start with bar stock and machine in the pockets, then just turn the OD and part off the individual pieces? Like I said, total noob so I could be totally off base.
Dan Harlan deep pockets are tough to machine, and big diameter material is more expensive than flat wide and thin material
Great Video there! Clear, neat and professional!
Nicely produced video John, I can tell you put some extra time into this one.
AVE sent me here. 10/10. I really have no idea what you're talking about. But I enjoy it
Nice videography today.
Too bad you don't have live tooling on the lathe? Start with round stock slightly oversize, rough and finish your pockets and centre hole, edge break pockets, turn O/D and part the piece off? De-burr the other side by hand? Would that work a little quicker or am i missing something
Another great video
If I was to do this (apart from punch/dye) i'd cut blanks on a lathe, then just feed them into a mount 8 at a time. If the other side "had" to be machined, i'd use the right 4 mounts as the second pass on the reverse side.
I saw some sort of matting material on IG a while back maybe from one of the daytron guys feeds. I think its a sacrificial material that helps to seal parts to the table, maybe Pierson knows something about it?
Hey John, a little off topic, but why don't you guys use a band saw to cut stock? Just prefer the chop saw's cleaner cuts?
To fine scrub in simulation just left click and drag left/right anywhere in the CAD view. ie, click and drag your mouse left and right over the simulation and it'll scrub nicely :)
Awesome!!! Gotta admit I'm a bit nervous about part 2 with no-gasket. :)
well I am suspecting that what went wrong with teh vacuum plate is that on the bought plate you are laying the part on a rubber gasket that makes up for any microscopic surface imperfections and hence a great vacuum seal. but when you have aluminum part laying in aluminum plate/fixture, who knows how perfect the surfaces are for maintaining a vacuum? I was wondering if a layer of say 5w oil between the part and fixture then apply vacuum. I am suspecting the oil will make up for any imperfections between surfaces. Maybe you can redesign the vacuum fixture so that the part is laying on a gasket material of some sort. Mold some rubber in the plate, freeze it and then machine it to accept that part? Some ideas.
What I was told should work: when machining the first side, leave just a really thin layer at the bottom, maybe 5 to 10 thou or so. You also don't need to mill everything away, just the contours. Afterwards, you can just push the rest stock out and trim the bottom by deburring the edges, because it's so thin. Don't know how good this is for production, though, because it needs some manual labor. Sure, it might not be much, but it will be when you have hundreds or thousands ot parts.
Had a thought that maybe vacuum plates could have a special 'super-sucker port' (with a rubber cup) at various locations for plate bowing.
Make a fixture plate with the pattern cut into it about .050" then hold it with your center bolt. You can do your second op in one shot. Super easy.
Actually you dont need to do this extra drawed lines for your toolpath. I just tested it, you can use 2D-Contur with a Ramp, so it does a ramped 'lead in' (parallel to the contour) and then it will machine the whole contour and retract.
You're worried about the seal when you flip it over because you don't have a gasket. I was totally thinking the same as everyone else that says use some grease to complete the seal!
Why didn't you use yout CNC lathe? Would the parts not fit or is yours not capable of doing it?
I'm just curios, because my way of going at it would be: round stock material, machining the inner slots with an inmill on the lathe(i dont know how to call this), and parting off the individual disks after that :)
Why did you choose to do it your way?
Hi,Is there any Blog or website to guide the beginner of CNC operators online? For example; I show them my drawing and they help me how to make it by CNC machine???
1:15 Fail fast, fail cheap...Noted! Messed up at this part a ton of times! Also an outside shop didn't make the work to the spec they assured me they could and now I have to repair warped surfaces!
7:30 In Fusion I guess that's the thing with integrated everything. I can show a baller rendering of the part that I have designed just while I 'm working on a structural simulation or tweaking the part! It's awesome!
which spraying system you are use?
In a production setup, why wouldnt you just buy a 6 axis cnc and have it running fulltime? You have a lot of CNCs, surely if you scheduled tasks back to back you'd have the best ROI?
some grease as gasket next week? just an idea. cheers.
What's the deal with adaptive clearing? It often gives me like three times the estimated milling time compared to a 'standard' 3D pocket.
I'm neither a Fusion 360 nor a milling expert so maybe this seems like a dumb question...
Fly cut the bottom side first, flip that to the vacuum plate/fixture and complete all machine jobs with the part as is. to chamfer the bottom side, don't that make a tool to do that? a chamfer mill that cuts on the top and bottom and just clean up all edges. wont have to flip and re-clock to chamfer edges nicely. Sorry I dont run CNCs, but this sounds do-able??
For production water jet or laser cut blanks then clean up this will out-way the machine time and cost.
i would do it first on a lathe and drill the hole then screw it down an mill out the inside segments.
When are you going to let us know what that $30 part was, I tried looking up your patent and could not find it
Hey John you mentioned this part reminds of the part back in your New York days. Was it that fish tank filter grate you made from I believe it was delrin. If not can you tell us what the part was that your sold a ton of. Thanks man.
I am not a machinist: what if you clamped it down to something like the fixture plates you're selling? I guess the main flaw with that idea is poor access to the sides and a couple of times refixturing and indicating.
So does sqauring the stock to the machine axis' not matter because you are using such large stock?
Or was there some step you didnt show? Or am I an idiot?
Are you going to manually drill the center hole? you'll lose vacuum with your current plan
Joshua Wentworth shhh. Don't spoil it 😆
Those look like flywheels for a model engine to me!
Correction! Vacuum do not holding this plate down, but atmospheric pressure from environment.
true, but the atmospheric pressure wouldn't hold the part down if there wasn't a vacuum on the other side!
Brilliant vid!
What was the two dollar part you started off by making ?
firearms targets
I use carpet tape. Works like a champ.
Bob Darlington Do you encounter any issues removing parts or getting tape off fixture/table? Any particular brand you've had success with?
Couldn't you just plasma cut the rough then machine out the final and have the run time go down quite a bit and keep it flat? Locate off the center using a spread mitee bite clamp, and have a removable dowel pin to locate a spoke
To what end? It's gonna be a mess. Still gonna require lots of cleanup machining, and facing off to the required thickness.
In the long run, you'd be creating more work for yourself.
Then you wouldn't need 2 separate machining ops. can run more in the VMC while your plasma is roughing out a bunch more
As for a production run?
That's a punch press job all day long. Kerchunk kerchunk for about an hour and you'll have hundreds easily.
You got an iron worker with enough capacity to run a punch and die that size right?
Punch em out, throw in tumbler, rinse em, pack em, collect cheque. 😁
Occams Sawzall
how do you go about making the tooling for this in a punching application
Tim Yuhas
I'm personally not that skilled in making punch and dies. But simply example of a punch and die is a paper hole punch.
The punch is the solid round rod that shears the paper and the die is the hole.
Basically cut the punch and the die out of steel, harden it, and use a press to punch out the shapes.
Metal working punch and dies require a bit of knowledge on die draft angles and punch shear angles etc. a tool and die maker would know better than me.
But basic principle is a paper hole punch, just oversized and requiring a lot more force.
I understand the basics but a round hole or square or what ever "hole" is pretty basic stuff. When you get Into shapes and stuff the complexity goes through the roof. I've got the same iron worker as John and some old 60 ton punch presses and from my learnings it is ungodly expensive to have the "complex" tooling made for these. Yes you could spit out the 50 parts a day he wants to make in a minute but is that worth it for a 5 to 15k spent in tooling.
For something like this that is flat I say go laser. And make a custom fixture to hold down the blank for chamfer if it needs it.
Oh I agree. I would never go punch and die for just 50 parts. 50,000 parts, you bet punch and die all the way.
50-100. Id come up with a multi part fixture on the mill.
thats exactly the spot laser cutting is for.not enough standard sized holes and contours in the part.
i highly doubt that everything machined is really that important on this part.
but if you only have a hammer every job looks like a nail... in this case its John with his milling machines ;)
good video!, sometimes (2:18) you use the strength adjective/property when "stiffness"/deflection is really the concern ;-)
maybe drill the hole first and screw it to a thicker plate in the vice?
So I am beginning to get what John is about. Its not like standing in front of your mentor. Its more like standing next to your class mate. Like "hey dude, I did it like this, how did you do it?" "Cool, looks good, I did it like this"
gus bisbal
Basically. Which isn't a bad thing. And he's got enough veteran machinists around him via the interwebs if he really gets stuck.
I think there is a lot of jealousy from veteran machinist that he has had business success. THAT is where he has well developed talent and skills. They can't do that so they give him hate for having the kind of business they always wanted but never wanted to learn business.
gus bisbal he's certainly business first machinist second.
Personally as a veteran machinists with 16 years and counting in, I want no part of running my own business 😆
Double sided sticky tape.
Tape a sheet of aluminum down right to the table, face entire sheet; skin it, just enough to clean up. Remove sheet from table with alcohol and tape machined side back down to the table. Face the sheet to thickness. Run part toolpaths +.005 from table on the Z. The tape is approximately .01 thick with a surprising degree of consistency. This can run one part or however many parts you can fit on your table, unattended. No fixture needed, no expensive vacuum plate needed (although very cool), all sides machined. The larger the surface area taped down, the heavier the cuts you can take.
Seriously, double sided sticky tape.
Geoffry e I can totally agree with you, I would also put something like masking tape in between the aluminium and the double sided tape, so you can pull it all of really easy. and I would take a sheet of metal as big as the machining table is, so you can do as many parts at a time as possible. for example, I work with 2 cnc portal mills with a 2x3meter table, so i could produce maybe more than 500 pieces in one process, but thats to big for taping it, but I leave just small bridges to let the pieces attached to the sheet.
sorry for my bad english by the way
Raik Kuntze what kind of double sided tape have you had success with? I had a project where I used it and it held the part fabulously. However, the removal process was a nightmare and I swore off the stuff. If you use masking tape to help removing the part, what do you do on the table/fixture side?
Sometimes it can be a pain to remove, I will admit. You've got to learn through trial and error how little tape you can get away with based on your application to ease the removal process. Best way to remove is to soak the edges of the finished part with alcohol and let it sit for a minute and then pry it up. The alcohol neutralizes the adhesive. I have had luck with 3M industrial double sided tape.
Personally I'm not a huge fan of vacuum in general. I have a hard time trusting it.
I would have clamped the edges, machined the interior features, put clamps inside and skim the outside. If you want to cut down that time you could make a fixture to simplify it
Vacuum is a well proven solution. No reason to fear it.
your voice, its not the same I feel.
Datron, done
part has outside radiius. hole. 2 lines 6 inside radius. that can be mirrored. why need cam lol. so many. i dont like that. why cam do it lol.part is here cut it without collision. dont tell me there is collision becouse cam is so smart it not do them. red alarms should not be in there. so easy part amd it come so complex G0 G1 G2 G3 all you need and G68 coordinate turn to mill other pockets. no need cam do all when make one and
Bang, lubangin box gw. Pake mesin router jelek bang
Desainnya mana bro
@@anggonopriyandono8603 Gk ada bang, gw make mode JOG pake feeling dan logika
There really is no such thing as a vacuum hold down its the ~14PSI atmospheric pressure (less in Denver) that is loading the part against the plate.
I would suggest using tabs and a custom clamping fixture.
1. Cut the spokes first, including the finish pass, center hole and chamfers.
2. Cut the OD last with leaving .025" thick tabs (or how ever thin works), leave
minimal stock for finish profile pass also do the OD chamfer allowing for the
not yet done OD profile finish pass.
3. Clip the tabs, flip it over use the center hole to hold the part.
(part will need to be clocked by a fixture feature)
4. Gently trim the tabs, do the OD finish pass then the second side chamfers.
5. Manually chamfer second side center hole.
Multiple parts could be done on a large vacuum plate for steps 1,2.
Craig Just an amatuer's $.02 worth.
Craig S This is what I was thinking too, in part because I don't have a vacuum plate. I think tabs would be a good way to go (thick enough to allow for bottom side ops), than flip the material before cutting the tabs, than mill to thickness, than chamfer, than hold down through center hole on the fixture, than finishing contour to remove the tabs. Use the center of the stock as the origin so when you flip the part the toolpaths "match" up no matter if the stock isn't precisely what you entered in CAM. One of Johns new fixture plates could be used for this if you center the holes using the correct spacing, or a very large table sized fixture with the needed tapped holes could be made to help production.