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5th Axis rock lock as quick change pallet bases?

StirlingMachine

Aluminum
Joined
Apr 19, 2015
Hi folks, looking for some advice. I'm about to start on a very large (for me) job of 3400 parts. The cycle time is about 5.5-6 minutes and I need to get them through one machine in about a month (my other machine will be running the mating parts). There's not much wiggle room for wasted time there. I ran a test batch of 60 for the company doing a single piece flow and I lost about 1.5-2 minutes per cycle to handling. Machine is a Speedio S700 with an A axis rotary. My plan is to make a trunnion table and load twelve parts per side, on two pallets per side. My hope is to use 5th axis rock lock bases to quick change the pallets. But I'm curious about peoples experience doing that. I've gotten the impression that maybe they're not designed to be taken on and off constantly. My reasoning for using them is that they're pretty low profile so I can maintain decent Z axis clearance as my gage length is already getting crunched, and also they're pretty inexpensive. But if folks have better options I'd be curious to hear it.

Cheers
 
Yeah, I am planning to make my own mini pallets regardless. Do you mean Jergens style ball locks with the female receiver in the trunnion? If so, looks like that would be as expensive, if not more so, once all the parts were bought, and I think the swap out would be slower. But I could be wrong about that since I haven't used them.
 
Is this something an Air Vise would excel at? Doing multiple parts on a trunnion, aside from the time investment in making the trunnion and fixtures, now means you need to have a full trunnion worth of fixtures plus at least one full set of spare fixtures to load while the machine is running. Probably a fair amount of time and money involved there, with the perk being that the machine can run longer while you're away from it.
 
5th Axis pallets are not really quick on the change. You need to get a big hex key in there, break the torque with both hands, release the system with one while holding the pallet with the other. It's all about a minute when all is said and done. Proper etiquette is to also torque wrench this whole thing, but who's gonna do that?

Of course, that is a full minute divided across X number of parts on the pallet, so this is generally going to solve your problem if you have 4x or 6x the components.

Lang offers a lever release accessory for their square pallets that should actually simplify things quite substantially and would take a bit of the struggle out of the process. I also know the 5th Axis folks were showing off a pneumatic release clamp at IMTS, but I don't know where that is at.

The Air Vise is a nice idea, but the downside is that you get no walkaway time benefits. Tending two machines at this volume is gonnna be a bear. While I tend to think really high volume production should be single piece flow and automation, in the small shop hustle, getting enough parts on the table to promote ~20 minutes of walk away time per cycle is absolutely worth the costs associated with multiple part pallets.
 
Before you get too crazy and throw money at this.
Why is a part unload/load running at 120 seconds in singles?
Can this be reduced?
Bob

Well I was moving as fast as I could, but that was as low as I could get it. I had op one in a vise on the 4th axis and op 2 in a vise on the table. so it was break two vises loose, pull the finished part and grab raw stock. Swap first op part to second op position and locate, lock down and tap in part. Then put raw stock in first op vise and tighten. 120 seconds included everything between cycle end and hitting the next cycle start, so there was, door open/close, some air blasting in there as well and an occasional chip spraydown when there was build up.
 
Is this something an Air Vise would excel at? Doing multiple parts on a trunnion, aside from the time investment in making the trunnion and fixtures, now means you need to have a full trunnion worth of fixtures plus at least one full set of spare fixtures to load while the machine is running. Probably a fair amount of time and money involved there, with the perk being that the machine can run longer while you're away from it.

Not sure air vises would work out. Plan is to get 12 first op parts on two pallets and 12 second op parts on two more pallets. Raw stock for the part is 3" x 2.5" x 3.75", so if memory serves I don't think I could even get two of those on one air vise. With the pallets I'm going to be able to close pack them and use almost all of the X travel of the machine. It's true that I'll need twice the fixtures but some aluminum stock is cheap, and the mitee bite parts are pretty cheap as well. At least compared to a bunch of air vises I think.
 
5th Axis pallets are not really quick on the change. You need to get a big hex key in there, break the torque with both hands, release the system with one while holding the pallet with the other. It's all about a minute when all is said and done. Proper etiquette is to also torque wrench this whole thing, but who's gonna do that?

Of course, that is a full minute divided across X number of parts on the pallet, so this is generally going to solve your problem if you have 4x or 6x the components.

Lang offers a lever release accessory for their square pallets that should actually simplify things quite substantially and would take a bit of the struggle out of the process. I also know the 5th Axis folks were showing off a pneumatic release clamp at IMTS, but I don't know where that is at.

The Air Vise is a nice idea, but the downside is that you get no walkaway time benefits. Tending two machines at this volume is gonnna be a bear. While I tend to think really high volume production should be single piece flow and automation, in the small shop hustle, getting enough parts on the table to promote ~20 minutes of walk away time per cycle is absolutely worth the costs associated with multiple part pallets.

Yeah agreed on all counts. Unfortunately there isn't quite the budget for automation, and there isn't time either. I'll need to have this set up within a week or so and then it's going to be a drag race till it's done. Classic situation where a company takes forever to get their end in order and then still want to keep to the original timeline.

I know the rocklock bases aren't the ideal situation, but for the budget, time, and space constraint I'm thinking it's probably the best bet. I was thinking I'd use an impact driver to break them loose to save a little time, and then use the torque wrench to tighten back down. there will be four bases and that will allow 12 parts per cycle, which should give me just over an hour long cycle. Plenty of time to get other stuff done. The other parts are simple one op parts and I'll plan on loading up the 4020 machine with some simple pallets and let it munch away for an hour and alternate parts loading/unloading
 
What about a Pierson mini pallet system? Looks like quick change over with the air actuated pallet clamp. I’ve got some vise pallets I’ve made, but they aren’t exactly quick change.
 
What about a Pierson mini pallet system? Looks like quick change over with the air actuated pallet clamp. I’ve got some vise pallets I’ve made, but they aren’t exactly quick change.

Yeah I was looking at that as well. I think with the additional height I'd have to lower the trunnion and only use one side. It would cut my parts per cycle in half, but it would be a lot faster swap. It's worth considering. I also would need to either put in a rotary air coupler or be real on point with the indexing moves to make sure that the lines didn't get twisted up.
 
I have two Rocklock plates I am selling. I used them and replaced them with Lang for no other reason but that I had to run the custom sub-plate under them which would reduce my Z too much on Mini Mill.

Another option would be to run Vero-S Mini plates. They are 1" thick, pneumatically actuated and you could move stuff off and on really quickly. They are expensive though, I think plate runs at $2600 range.
 
Once you get to pallet swapping, you won't want pallets on both sides of the trunnion anyway. With parts on both sides, you have to release one, put one on, spin the A axis manually, release the other, put the other on. That's annoying if you have to do it repetitively. My favorite pallet swap setup is with pallet release on a foot air valve. Step on the valve, pull the pallet out, drop the other in and away you go.

The brother changes tools faster than my rotary will index 180 degrees anyway, so parts on both sides doesn't really save any time there either. Plus you have to make twice as many pallets.

Never used the Pierson mini system, but I like the full sized pallets a lot, so I imagine the mini ones are similar.
 
Once you get to pallet swapping, you won't want pallets on both sides of the trunnion anyway. With parts on both sides, you have to release one, put one on, spin the A axis manually, release the other, put the other on. That's annoying if you have to do it repetitively. My favorite pallet swap setup is with pallet release on a foot air valve. Step on the valve, pull the pallet out, drop the other in and away you go.

The brother changes tools faster than my rotary will index 180 degrees anyway, so parts on both sides doesn't really save any time there either. Plus you have to make twice as many pallets.

Never used the Pierson mini system, but I like the full sized pallets a lot, so I imagine the mini ones are similar.

My main goal with both sides was getting more walk away time, goes from like 32 minutes to 64 minutes ish. My thought for swapping both sides was that i would program in an operator stop at the end of the program with the table next to the door and one side up, swap the top side pallets and then close the door hit cycle start and have it index 180 degrees at full speed because the manual rotate with the A axis is pretty slow with the door open. Seems like it would be pretty quick. But what you're saying does make sense.

What pneumatic system are you using for the pallet hold down currently?
 
Do you have a normal kurt or orange vise(s) you could use, if the rotary isnt necessary?
If so, I am working on a pallet idea - would be happy to send you some jaws and pallet(s). PM me if so.

Otherwise, a basic DIY pallet base and some orange couplers would probably work wonders.
 
Do you have a normal kurt or orange vise(s) you could use, if the rotary isnt necessary?
If so, I am working on a pallet idea - would be happy to send you some jaws and pallet(s). PM me if so.

Otherwise, a basic DIY pallet base and some orange couplers would probably work wonders.

I do. I need the rotary for the first op or it becomes two ops. originally my plan had been a tombstone on the rotary with four parts for op 1, and then four parts in the dual station vise for op 2. But I just realized I could get a lot more parts on the trunnion. I had thought about just doing op 1 on the trunnion, but then the tail support is in the middle of the table taking up work envelope, so if I get it outside the envelope I can use all the available space.
 
Have you considered doing all parts as Op 1, then changing the setup and finishing everything Op 2? Might make things easier to lay out if you can just drop a length of bar stock on each side of a tombstone and have it get 4 parts out of a bar or something along those lines. Get everything through op 1 and then switch setups.
 
I hadn’t really considered it. In this application I think they’re going to be taking parts in batches as ready, so I can’t just run all op 1’s and then move on.
 
As much as I like my rocklock riser on my UMC750, I think the other posters are right and there's other faster ways to change out. Like the $chunk vero-s $tuff... or even Haas has one air-powered now. (although it sounds like an air-ratchet to drive the bolt) Not sure on cost and no experience with that one though. Just seen it on one of their videos. YouTube
 
How big are your parts? I generally make custom fixtures for the 4th axis stuff with a pneumatic tailstock or vacuum held pallets for the 3 axis stuff for larger run parts. Both take 20 seconds of spindle down time to swap the fixtures. I ALWAYS do 1st op and then 2nd op, then back to 1st op for the best workflow. I can't imagine having 3,400 parts sitting around with the first op waiting for the 2nd.
 








 
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