Say a guy has a family of parts that is pretty elaborate... Material is a FR4/G10 and roughly 2" x 8" per part. With around 20 parts on a pallet.
All the parts are basically the same and can be machined with about a dozen tools using identical fixtures that are equally spaced. BUT there is a huge number of variations! Around 200 different ways to make the same part. Every day an order comes in and I need to make what ever the order calls for.
The way I'm running the parts currently is all 200 variations are programmed with a machine position of G54 = X0, Y0... (also the machine home as a nice bonus).... When one part finishes I offset the G54 two inches so it reads G54 = X2, Y0 and select the next program to run which is almost always another part number! I have the job set up on pallets with ball locks so change over is a non issue.... The problem is cycle time on these parts is 6 minute on the simple one's and up to 15 minutes on complex ones. So every 6 to 15 minutes I have to go attend to the machine and select another program. Not that that is a big deal, but it is hard to get other things done when you have to baby sit a machine 10 times an hour.
Any one know of a better way to do this?????
Queuing Programs?
Sub routines?
Macros?
Right now the parts are being ran on a Haas... which works well... but would other controllers be more suitable?
All the parts are basically the same and can be machined with about a dozen tools using identical fixtures that are equally spaced. BUT there is a huge number of variations! Around 200 different ways to make the same part. Every day an order comes in and I need to make what ever the order calls for.
The way I'm running the parts currently is all 200 variations are programmed with a machine position of G54 = X0, Y0... (also the machine home as a nice bonus).... When one part finishes I offset the G54 two inches so it reads G54 = X2, Y0 and select the next program to run which is almost always another part number! I have the job set up on pallets with ball locks so change over is a non issue.... The problem is cycle time on these parts is 6 minute on the simple one's and up to 15 minutes on complex ones. So every 6 to 15 minutes I have to go attend to the machine and select another program. Not that that is a big deal, but it is hard to get other things done when you have to baby sit a machine 10 times an hour.
Any one know of a better way to do this?????
Queuing Programs?
Sub routines?
Macros?
Right now the parts are being ran on a Haas... which works well... but would other controllers be more suitable?