Did a little playing around with TCPC and 5 axis autotuning on our Okuma MU4000V

I did a little playing around with our Okuma MU4000V and a Haimer Centro Co-ax indicator. I figured it would be a cool way to experiment with TCPC Tool Center Point Control or G169 on our MU.

I ran the 5 axis auto tuning routine before the centro test.

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I got the idea from a demo that Morris Midwest was running at an open house a few years ago.

The trunion/knuckle for that universal looks so bad-ass and solid. Love how they mount what appears to be a laser tool probe. Serious government level equipment.

I do something similar with a test indicator and dynamic offsets on Mazaks to check the pivot point and kinematics. I've been meaning to try it with TCP, now you've inspired me!

You should try it with more range of tilt (B axis?), generally that's where I see errors start to stack up.

For years, Mitsui did a similar demo at the IMTS show. A .0001" reading indicator and through the whole run you might see the needle twitch less than half an increment. Amazing stuff.

That is pretty cool to a guy like me that does not know much about full 5 axis machines

That is very cool..and unreal at the same time.
Gary

The first time I tried this I didn't use a TLO, I just set the z axis work zero when the tip of the centro was approximately at the center of the sphere. The machine would follow the C axis correctly but it was way off when I moved the B axis a couple degrees.

I thought the problem might be the lack of a TLO. I found the location of the top of the sphere with the probe and subtracted half its diameter so the workoffset would be at the center of the sphere. Then I measured the Centro in our tool presetter and subtracted half the diameter of the tip. The test worked but the Centro showed about 20 microns of error running it.

I'm pretty confident in my method of measuring the sphere, but the centro was a little trickier. The tip moves in an arc and there is some preload on it, so when I measured it the tip wasn't in the same spot as when its over the sphere. I wonder if error in the length of the centro would cause some of the error I saw in the test.

That's cool, I never have seen it done with an indicator like that. Usually a probe.