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New Machine Day! Tsugami B0326-II

Rick Finsta

Stainless
Joined
Sep 27, 2017
I'm done with these Russian truckers. Idiots are five hours late (luckily the riggers' other appointment ran into the same problem and they didn't have to leave) and then while the riggers are placing the machine, one walks up to me and asks "can fork lift ballet wait until truck empty? Can you get other things off truck?" while the other guy is rummaging through our scrap bins. Unbelievable. Morris Midwest and REM are great about it though; the trucking company is picking up the tab for the rigger's extra time.

Forget my moaning; on to NEW MACHINE DAY!

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Install starts Monday as our electrician couldn't get us in until tomorrow and we weren't able to get the transformer prior to the machine delivery. We got the full two weeks of training for the First on the Floor program even though this machine didn't actually qualify for it; Morris figured if it was our first Swiss turn why cut us off after we paid extra for it to have that sixth axis? LOL

I actually have a horror story regarding why that other Tsugami (M08SY) doesn't have its bar feeder installed, but that will wait until everything is resolved. We are eager to make chips on this thing as we have dozens of legacy products that are a perfect fit. We got the 32mm so we could have some cross compatibility with the work on our other turning centers as well. The plan is to run our turning centers lights out for several hours at the end of each day.
 

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We took out five stamping presses in the last few weeks with three more to go in the next week to clear room. We have around 30k square feet and about 1/3 of it is dedicated to future production of a sister company's product. We are at a point where we need to stabilize the current business and get the work transferred over to the new machines ASAP. We've got a great team but a lot of moving parts right now!

Paint is done (inside and out) and LED fixtures are in. Climate control is coming in the next few months; we need to get a handle on it before the snow flies and we're running the ancient heaters.

We're working on the floor plans now, but realistically this place is going to be packed wall to wall within the next few years. It's hard for me (as a newcomer) to visualize this place in five years but I've got a lot of faith in the owners and their track record. I wish I had taken pictures of the shop back in May when we took over. Total shithole; starting to look like somewhere folks wanna put some work in!

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So the very first part we put on this was 5000 pieces of a 7" long 304 stainless shaft with identical features on both ends, which then goes through a press to form it at our sister company before going to the customer. We got a generous tooling certificate for Sandvik since I kinda dropped the ball on tooling for our M08SY (which has been running unattended all week knocking out little aluminum bushings).

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It became immediately apparent that we needed the back work collection. Luckily I had bought the chip conveyor with clearance "just in case." We got this job as a rush to help out within the organization and the longest part we had otherwise for this was about 4.5" long. I bought the bushing from REM but there was no way i was going to pay something like $6k for the sheetmetal so I made one at my home shop. If anyone has an old Weber Grill emblem they'll donate I think that will finish the look...

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I was having trouble with insert life but the Sandvik rep and I got it figured out, along with an apps guy from Engman-Taylor. The handwheel program check feature is keeping me sane on this thing! Now, back to programming since we've got a month long backlog on this machine right now.
 
The control is at the wrong side of the machine....

Congrats! Ever have any Swiss specific questions, post 'em up here!
 
LOL the funny thing is if they put the pivots for the swivel mount on the controller opposite where they did, you'd be ably to get it much closer to you while you've got the door open. That said, it isn't bad. Swapping inserts is nice with the Sandvik quick change system, but we are still waiting for the special brackets for the main turning station. Luckily the CNMTs we're using are lasting forever so I only have to lean in and get at them every few days when I start getting nervous that one can't possibly last any longer. We had serious issues with an 0.080" wide 1125 grade parting insert, they just keep blowing one corner off. I've got some 1145 grade to try (gratis) but the bottom line is I can't get the spindle sync to work reliably above 6000rpm, even with a speed confirmation code call. The REM trainer did tell me to keep sync operations under 6500rpm, but all these inserts are mean for crazy high surface speeds (hence the move to the 1145 grade). I'll have some time tomorrow to screw around with those.

This thing is at the shop right now banging out another 30 bars worth of parts while I surf the web and rink beer in my pajamas. Can't beat that! I'm going in tomorrow morning to change inserts and reload the magazine. Speaking of which, shout out to Edge Barfeeders for the fantastic service. I think I've put a few miles of bar through the three we got in the last month and they are great. The pendant controls for them are super nice.

Lots more to learn, and it is super fun. I only have a few more weeks until I've gotta switch gears and focus on the new Matsuura. If we're being honest turning is cool and all but milling is what I love!
 
Congrats, Rick! Is this your first sliding headstock machine? What barfeed did you get? Are you running ground stock? Good thing you got the right chip conveyor for the rear parts-eject!

Our 325 is on order! I’m obviously super excited but I DO wish the control was closer to the machine. I think it at least pivots close enough to be able to handle jog through a program while still being able to see what’s going on in the machine.

Enjoy, bro!
 
Yes, the shop had an older Miyano sliding-headstock turret machine but it hadn't run in years. Evidently they ran a bunch of non-G&P through it and trashed the guide bushing and then never fixed it. Pretty typical of the old ownership! We have an Edge 338 on this; we got it along with a pair of 551s for our Tsugami M08SY and an older Mazak that had a really clapped-out FMB on it that was beyond end-of-life.

We did get the chucker conversion so we can run a few parts in this machine if we are full on our larger machines, but honestly I think it will live in sliding headstock mode with G&P bar stock most of its life. We run mostly 0.1875"-0.3125" material for these parts

I seem to remember that the 325 and 326 were identical except for the height of the Y2 tool area inside the machine. Handwheeling through is really easy with the control where it is, but when you do stuff on the back work area the coolant tends to cloud up the area you're looking through. It would be nice if you could stand about 6" further over and still reach the control.

I'm not sure if this is something you've done before but the trainer showed me an easy way to use macro variables to run only the front or back half of a program, which makes proving them out super easy with the handwheel.

Here's a video of the first part:

Tsugami B326-II First Part - YouTube
 
For the spindle sync, sync at something low, like under 1K RPM, then clamp your sub once they're synced, THEN bring your RPM up.
 
Also, I'm not familiar with the Tsugami control, but you shouldn't need to use macros to turn one head on or off, you should have an options screen somewhere with the option to turn on/off each head. At least, that's how Citizens work.
 
Nothing I can find about this in the FANUC manuals. The way the programs run, if I want to run parts of both programs (for instance, I want to test the parting operation with the main spindle and sub sync'd) then I just have to play with some IF GOTO statements to get it to happen. It only takes a few minutes to get it into a program and then I just throw some comments at the start so I don't forget how I have it set up.

Did I say how much I hate stainless? I am running a 0.1875" diameter 416 part now and got a little happy with the rapid feeds on the sub sync. Wrapped up some stock something fierce and spent the rest of the day trying to get the stainless bits out of the carbide lined guide bushing. Tomorrow I am calling Hardinge for Meehanite lined bushings for all the sizes I've got. Most parts I would just shrug and drive on with the little bit of galling but this part has a 16RA surface finish call.
 
Nothing I can find about this in the FANUC manuals. The way the programs run, if I want to run parts of both programs (for instance, I want to test the parting operation with the main spindle and sub sync'd) then I just have to play with some IF GOTO statements to get it to happen. It only takes a few minutes to get it into a program and then I just throw some comments at the start so I don't forget how I have it set up.

Did I say how much I hate stainless? I am running a 0.1875" diameter 416 part now and got a little happy with the rapid feeds on the sub sync. Wrapped up some stock something fierce and spent the rest of the day trying to get the stainless bits out of the carbide lined guide bushing. Tomorrow I am calling Hardinge for Meehanite lined bushings for all the sizes I've got. Most parts I would just shrug and drive on with the little bit of galling but this part has a 16RA surface finish call.


When you have really delicate material, you can get PVC lined guide bushings too.

(Don't know what other shops call it, but when you bend up all your stock in your GB, we call it a Pretzel, for obvious reasons)
 
I just felt a little better about it when the lead machinist came over and laughed it off, saying we was surprised it hadn't happened to me yet.
 
I'm not sure if this is something you've done before but the trainer showed me an easy way to use macro variables to run only the front or back half of a program, which makes proving them out super easy with the handwheel.

Yeah our programs all have #501=1 runs main only, #501=2 runs sub only. It makes it easy for me to not have to watch two spindles during setup....or without having picked off the first part I wouldn't have anything in the sub to touch off tools to so unless I just typed in some "safe" offset it could be trouble. So I always run main only, manually take the part out of the sub to make sure my part length and other features are correct, THEN make another one...do NOT take it out of the sub and start touching off the tools on my rear post. I almost never use the "run sub only."

Congratulations, again! :cheers:
 
Thanks! The last few pieces of the second and third parts through the machine are plinking into the work catcher as I type. 1100 pieces today that used to be 3+ weeks of manual operations, starting with cutoff on a screw machine.

The next one is a doozy with some back milling. Only 200 of those, I think.

I do the back tool touch off the exact way you describe, it works really well.
 
Here's the next part. Honestly between Abile and F360 most of the coding is pretty simple, but I'm having issues with radii in G71/G72 calls. I have to cheat the radii up from what is calculated to get the controller to not throw a code about the shape of the part not being "monotonous."

I had issues with a decimal call in a peck cycle today, too. So the turning and cross drilling were coded by hand. What a pain relative to mill work!

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Cycle time is around 90 seconds so far but I can get that down a bit as I increase the SFM to get better finish and increase feeds in a few areas that gave me some pucker factor when proving it out.

These things used to take nearly ten operations and a batch of 400 would have been several weeks to get through the shop (based on machine availability and setup times). I should be able to knock these out before the Holiday.
 








 
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