Hi Everyone
Our shops search for a new CNC for cutting sink edm electrodes has led us down a slightly different path than we first anticipated.
We have calculated we are only cutting for maybe 40% of the available hours in a week (we only run one shift) so instead of adding another mill right now and all the extra requirements that come with it, it seems to make sense to add some automation to the existing machines to hopefully increase the spindle uptime by keeping the machines running longer at night and over the weekend.
We are comparing a couple different robot/transfer systems, with a common component being a CMM to be placed in a cell between the CNC and sink EDM machine.
The CMM will be used for checking/measuring electrodes as they come off the CNC, and measuring presets to save setup time on the Sink EDM and CNC.
We also plan to use the CMM during the day for measuring key features on core/cavity blocks, inserts, and anything else we would like to measure from our normal machining jobs.
Machines we are currently comparing:
-Hexagon/Brown&Sharp Global S Green 7.10.7 machine w/ “PCDMIS CAD+” software
-Mitutoyo Strato-Apex 574 w/ “MCOSMOS” software.
We are open to considering other machines but have only compared these two at this point.
We are somewhat leaning towards the Mitutoyo machine because we already have a larger size Strato-Apex in our quality department for checking production parts, and keeping the same type of machine and software would easily allow the quality guys to use to use the shop-floor CMM with existing programs at times when they are overloaded. As well as making it easier to train the rest of us on it's use.
Our biggest concern is ease of programming. Since we don’t do production machining, everything is basically one-off “prototype” work and there can easily be 10-15 electrode programs to write during the day to be run overnight.
With adding a CMM into the mix, that’s an additional program that will have to be written for each electrode so we want to make sure whichever machine we go with will be as quick and easy to program as possible since any delays here will add up.
We have had our CMM guy walk us through creating a program in MSCOSMOS and it seems fine, but it would be nice if there were functions that could automate some of the steps to speed things up a bit. We make use of templates programming electrodes for the CNC and this saves a lot of time, is there anything similar for CMM software? I'm also investigating whether I can maybe attach points through our CAM software and have them come in as "measuring points" or something similar but not sure how easy this will be.
Are there any game-changing features we should be aware of? Any particular software head and shoulders better than the rest? Anything else?
Any comments/experiences/input would be appreciated. Thanks!
Our shops search for a new CNC for cutting sink edm electrodes has led us down a slightly different path than we first anticipated.
We have calculated we are only cutting for maybe 40% of the available hours in a week (we only run one shift) so instead of adding another mill right now and all the extra requirements that come with it, it seems to make sense to add some automation to the existing machines to hopefully increase the spindle uptime by keeping the machines running longer at night and over the weekend.
We are comparing a couple different robot/transfer systems, with a common component being a CMM to be placed in a cell between the CNC and sink EDM machine.
The CMM will be used for checking/measuring electrodes as they come off the CNC, and measuring presets to save setup time on the Sink EDM and CNC.
We also plan to use the CMM during the day for measuring key features on core/cavity blocks, inserts, and anything else we would like to measure from our normal machining jobs.
Machines we are currently comparing:
-Hexagon/Brown&Sharp Global S Green 7.10.7 machine w/ “PCDMIS CAD+” software
-Mitutoyo Strato-Apex 574 w/ “MCOSMOS” software.
We are open to considering other machines but have only compared these two at this point.
We are somewhat leaning towards the Mitutoyo machine because we already have a larger size Strato-Apex in our quality department for checking production parts, and keeping the same type of machine and software would easily allow the quality guys to use to use the shop-floor CMM with existing programs at times when they are overloaded. As well as making it easier to train the rest of us on it's use.
Our biggest concern is ease of programming. Since we don’t do production machining, everything is basically one-off “prototype” work and there can easily be 10-15 electrode programs to write during the day to be run overnight.
With adding a CMM into the mix, that’s an additional program that will have to be written for each electrode so we want to make sure whichever machine we go with will be as quick and easy to program as possible since any delays here will add up.
We have had our CMM guy walk us through creating a program in MSCOSMOS and it seems fine, but it would be nice if there were functions that could automate some of the steps to speed things up a bit. We make use of templates programming electrodes for the CNC and this saves a lot of time, is there anything similar for CMM software? I'm also investigating whether I can maybe attach points through our CAM software and have them come in as "measuring points" or something similar but not sure how easy this will be.
Are there any game-changing features we should be aware of? Any particular software head and shoulders better than the rest? Anything else?
Any comments/experiences/input would be appreciated. Thanks!
- Our inital quote was somewhat reasonable, but we realized a couple key componenets got "forgotten" and once you start adding all the extra stuff the costs really add up.