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What's new

Any new technology in the machining world?

thunderskunk

Cast Iron
Joined
Nov 13, 2018
Location
Middle-of-nowhere
What’s new to machining? Anything spectacular? We’re trying out LFV turning, but that’s not necessarily new either.

I did a google/YouTube search thinking this would be an easy question to answer, and it just wasn’t. Lots of stuff from 2018, and even funnier are the videos that say your business “won’t survive if they don’t invest in these technologies.” Its 2021, and the world keeps turning.

I’m also fairly sick of the 3D printing craze. I’ll be impressed when someone can 3D print a product with threads and a critical bore/OD to a tight tolerance to a speed/price comparable to a machine tool. I’m not naysaying 3D printing; we use it when it’s appropriate. 3D printing can’t do anything to improve my machining center cycle times or part quality though.
 
Haven’t yet tried interrupted cut spinning tool turning. That would be an O insert for example spun and moved into the work instead of an R insert. Foolish?
 
I think one of the next big things that will take a long time to make it into the industry is machines that combine additive and subtractive manufacturing.
 
I think one of the next big things that will take a long time to make it into the industry is machines that combine additive and subtractive manufacturing.

I guess? Eh. That’s not even all that crazy, it’s just combining two processes into one machine.

Laser turning isn’t brand new, but I saw some the other day when running off a new machine. Kinda cool, I just don’t have applications that require it. I’m hoping for like... tooling that flips it’s own inserts. Machines that maintain themselves. Nanobot machining. The new mitee bite clamp you can’t live without.
 
I guess? Eh. That’s not even all that crazy, it’s just combining two processes into one machine...

The new and exciting part isn't the machine. Yes as someone said DMG-Mori makes them. To me the new and exciting part is designing parts to take advantage of it. That is why it will take a long time to be introduced... entire products not just components need to be redesigned to take advantage of it.
 
Haven’t yet tried interrupted cut spinning tool turning. That would be an O insert for example spun and moved into the work instead of an R insert. Foolish?


Seems like it never really caught on. I think the general problem with these types of solutions is that they eliminate one bottleneck, only to reveal the next.
 
Seems like it never really caught on. I think the general problem with these types of solutions is that they eliminate one bottleneck, only to reveal the next.

And a family of milling cutters doing the same quite a while back.
Orange Vise is right in more problems than fixes. Seemed like a neat idea but not so good in practice.
Bob
 
Vast majority (if not all) of posts on this thread dealt with material cutting technologies. This is not my area of expertise. The substance of machine’s construction – certainly is. I am in this business for over 50 years, and sadly, scanning the past, I have to say that not much radically changed in this field during these years. Back in 1970, when I started, I dealt already with simultaneous 5 axis machining centers (Sundstrand Omnimill) and 5 axis profilers (Marwin). These machines produced parts for aircraft jet engines as well as for aircraft fuselage, with all crazy demands of these tasks, and believe me, with great success. In the meantime the feedrates and the spindle speeds of the machines grew, but speaking frankly, this is the only technological difference I can see.
There was interesting attempt to change the classic Cartesian moving system with hexapod platform, but it died silently. The linear motors are still very rare, and there is no enough experience to judge, how good their influence on machine behavior is.
So for the meantime remain still with classic machine design, and no “breaking news” to be seen on the horizon.

Stefan
 
There was interesting attempt to change the classic Cartesian moving system with hexapod platform, but it died silently. The linear motors are still very rare, and there is no enough experience to judge, how good their influence on machine behavior is.

Linear motors made their way into EDM machines to great effect thanks to companies like Sodick.
 
I think the cutting tools have gotten significantly better in the past ten to fifteen years. I don't even remember what it was like roughing out a mold or a pocket before adaptive tool paths or hi feed milling cutters. So even if its not a big leap forward, I still get excited when a new geometry or coating comes out.
 
I think the cutting tools have gotten significantly better in the past ten to fifteen years. I don't even remember what it was like roughing out a mold or a pocket before adaptive tool paths or hi feed milling cutters. So even if its not a big leap forward, I still get excited when a new geometry or coating comes out.

This is a very important point and I'd say this slowly creeping revolution, if you will, has been an important feature of machining for some time. My sense, from spending years in academic R&D labs and shops, is that in electronics for example, people got used to rapid change and the need to stay up to date on new products. This was also obviously true of computing. In machining however, it was easier to imagine your knowledge was still current while in fact you were slowly getting out of date. In addition to better tooling, the cost reduction of CNC machines in general has been a disruptive factor, and another relatively new trend has been the proliferation of affordable multiaxis machining and steadily improving CAM.
 
I think one of the biggest changes in manufacturing is the cost of entry today.

Good used VMC's and 2 axis lathes are all over and dirt cheap.

For established companies it makes no difference, but for guys starting out it's a huge advantage.

I think social media marketing has had a strange effect on startups too. Total hacks can promote themselves and succeed way more often than they should.
 








 
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