Machine crashes more common these days?

What is the general assessment... Do people think crashes with CNC machines to be occurring more often then the old inefficient hands on manual machines?

Its the same as it ever was, a CNC will just crash faster and cost more to fix.

I would say yes. More now than before.


1) Push harder/longer without any feel and thus not backing off of a tired tool.

2) Manual masheen = somebody standing there. I have 2 running only within earshot ratt now. (I should be fixturing a 3rd, but I'm hiding from that machine right now.... ) So lightly - or completely unattended masheens will crash, or at least train wreck where they wouldn't in ... say a turret lathe.

2A) If you were running HIGH production you would likely have safetys as well as probes in place. That doesn't avoid a crash, but it does avoid a train wreck.


-----------------

Train Wreck
Ox

I would say, Yes! Because there are a lot more CNC machines than there used to be.

Also people get real lax, or over confident, and wham!!

When it is a manual machine, usually someone is standing there close by ( Like Ox said).

I heard a man talking one time about there are a lot more airplane crashes now (that was around 1999) than there was in 1970.

The airline person replied " There are ____% percent more airplanes flying now than there was in 1970. So we really have less of a crash ratio"

So many people read about lights out companies, etc. and think that they can buy a new (to them) machine, and run it the first night lights out.

JAckal

Just throwing this guess out there too.. but I'm betting the push to save money which filters down to button pushers and not really much of even a basic machinist leads to a few more crashes too.

Actually, crashes in our facility have went down considerably over the last several years. We are a 24/7 high volume production shop. Better, more predictable life tooling and the data to support tool life changes. Better automation interfaces to the machines, more checks and error proofing, and better processes have all led to fewer wrecks. In the late 90's through early 2000's, it was not uncommon to have several wrecks a week across 14 machine lines (120+ automated machines). As of now, it's maybe a couple a year, and have went more than a year without one, and when they do happen, it's typically a major failure of a machine component, or a part failure (casting defect resulting in the part being machined coming apart during machining.)