aarongough
Stainless
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2014
- Location
- Toronto, Canada
Hey guys!
I'm looking at transitioning the bulk of my production machining to 'lights out', mainly because this will free up the VMC for my use during the day to do prototyping and so on... It should make a lot better overall use of my VMC.
The program that will be running overnight is one that's machining multiple operations on a single part family on a single fixture. Mostly hard-milling with some composite machining at the end. The hardmilling is done dry with an air-blast, the composite machining is done under vacuum. Cycle time will be around 4 hours.
All my parts are run on quick-change fixture plates, so there's no concern about running the wrong offsets as they never change. My process is stable enough now that I never tweak offsets or anything, all I'm doing is basically changing to new tools every 9-10 parts. My programs are setup to change to an empty spindle at the end of the program to make sure tools don't get stuck in the spindle as it cools...
I'm planning on getting a internet accessible camera setup in the shop so that I can monitor the machine as it's an older one (Fadal VMC10) that doesn't have monitoring capabilities.
What other things should I be looking at changing/implementing to make the transition to 'lights out' smoother?
Thanks guys!
-Aaron
I'm looking at transitioning the bulk of my production machining to 'lights out', mainly because this will free up the VMC for my use during the day to do prototyping and so on... It should make a lot better overall use of my VMC.
The program that will be running overnight is one that's machining multiple operations on a single part family on a single fixture. Mostly hard-milling with some composite machining at the end. The hardmilling is done dry with an air-blast, the composite machining is done under vacuum. Cycle time will be around 4 hours.
All my parts are run on quick-change fixture plates, so there's no concern about running the wrong offsets as they never change. My process is stable enough now that I never tweak offsets or anything, all I'm doing is basically changing to new tools every 9-10 parts. My programs are setup to change to an empty spindle at the end of the program to make sure tools don't get stuck in the spindle as it cools...
I'm planning on getting a internet accessible camera setup in the shop so that I can monitor the machine as it's an older one (Fadal VMC10) that doesn't have monitoring capabilities.
What other things should I be looking at changing/implementing to make the transition to 'lights out' smoother?
Thanks guys!
-Aaron