Post by baz62 on Sept 17, 2010 17:09:37 GMT 12
Hullo fans (I know you're out there I can see you typing)
As mentioned on Radialicous's Bristol Freighter thread i decided to have a go at engraving the "Bristol" logo at work on my CNC milling machine.
Since some of you may not know what one is I thought a little tour of the workshop might be in order. (I work for Integrated Hydraulics Ltd or IHL for short)
Here are some views of the workshop showing most of our CNCs ,we have 1 CNC Borer, 8 vertical mills, 3 horizontal mills and 1 CNC lathe.
Vertical means the spindle is over the table and horizontal means its from the side (basically)
The large blue beast is the horizontal I am currently on. For those wanting to know it is a Matsuura HP630 with a 6 pallet changar.
Heres a closer view of my little work(HA) station beside it.
As you can see I even have a secretary................
The PC (hidden under the table) is connected to our network and I use it to select the files I need (in this case one Bristol Logo) and fire it into this. This is the controller which I use to drive the beast. Its all touch button whereas most of the other mills are push button or toggle switches. When we got this machine I think we were the first to have this controller in NZ.
These shots are at the back where all the tooling lives. It holds 240 tools. Sounds like a lot but sometimes a new job means I have to take something out and when you have 3 or 5 jobs running at once it can be a mission.
The large yellow thing is the tool robot. When I (or the program) wants a tool this robot goes and gets it and puts it in the spindle and puts the previous tool back in the rack. It seriously moves fast and you wouldn't want to be in its way!!
And this is an example of the things we make. This is a hydraulic manifold rated at 1000psi and weighs about 90KG machined from ductile iron (cast iron).
Right onto the logo. Here's the drawing generated from Auto-CAD on a PC. (Just like your Auto-Cad eh Al? ;D) The arrow in the middle is the origin so the CNC knows where the drawing is in space. Well after I tell it where it is.
A trip down to the scrap bin and a piece of aluminum awaits some tools to be waved at it. Its sitting on the program sheet generated for the logo.
i then looked for an empty pallet and brought it into the change station. We mostly use rail vices where we can and they are the business. The jaws can be moved up and down in 2mm increments and you can tighten the living crap out of them and nothing will move that you don't want to.
And a close up of a vice.
After a bit of filing to remove the skanky bits I put the material in position. Here I am ensuring the material is in the middle.
And tightened up ready to go into the machine.
Once I've brought the pallet in its time to sort out the workshift which basically tells the program where that little arrow is on the drawing.
To do this I use something familiar to all you alien abductees.................a Probe!
This is a measuring device used to find a surface and telling the machine where it is. Hopefully you can see the little red ball on the end of the white shaft. By gently moving the machine table until the ball touches (either the end or any side) and using the machine probe software the three main axis (X Y and Z) are recorded. This machine has a 4th axis which is rotation of the table but we aren't doing that today.
Heres the screen I look at to probe with.
Here I am probing the Y axis on top of the block. I'll do the bottom as well and divide by 2 and add it to either value, that will be the centre of the block and the centre of the logo as per that origin arrow. Since I already know the centre of my pallets I don't need to probe in X.
The final probe if the front face which I drop a millimetre to ensure any skanky bits are machined off.
Didn't think I would see a program in my machine with the word Bristol in the description!!!!
Heres the start of the engraving tool code. Lots of X and Y moves in this one!!
And we are away. This is a 80mm diameter facer which I machine the front of the material with.
And here is the engraving tool ready to do the logo.
And here it is after about 5 or 6 minutes.
Hmmm bit of chatter down the bottom, either the tool is a bit blunt or I need to do another light cut to clean it up. Spelt it right though!!
Looks better at a distance.
I showed it to Hamish (Mush) one of our Cad designers and he is happy to spend some more time and tidy up a few bits and pieces on it but as a first attempt its looking good.
As mentioned on Radialicous's Bristol Freighter thread i decided to have a go at engraving the "Bristol" logo at work on my CNC milling machine.
Since some of you may not know what one is I thought a little tour of the workshop might be in order. (I work for Integrated Hydraulics Ltd or IHL for short)
Here are some views of the workshop showing most of our CNCs ,we have 1 CNC Borer, 8 vertical mills, 3 horizontal mills and 1 CNC lathe.
Vertical means the spindle is over the table and horizontal means its from the side (basically)
The large blue beast is the horizontal I am currently on. For those wanting to know it is a Matsuura HP630 with a 6 pallet changar.
Heres a closer view of my little work(HA) station beside it.
As you can see I even have a secretary................
The PC (hidden under the table) is connected to our network and I use it to select the files I need (in this case one Bristol Logo) and fire it into this. This is the controller which I use to drive the beast. Its all touch button whereas most of the other mills are push button or toggle switches. When we got this machine I think we were the first to have this controller in NZ.
These shots are at the back where all the tooling lives. It holds 240 tools. Sounds like a lot but sometimes a new job means I have to take something out and when you have 3 or 5 jobs running at once it can be a mission.
The large yellow thing is the tool robot. When I (or the program) wants a tool this robot goes and gets it and puts it in the spindle and puts the previous tool back in the rack. It seriously moves fast and you wouldn't want to be in its way!!
And this is an example of the things we make. This is a hydraulic manifold rated at 1000psi and weighs about 90KG machined from ductile iron (cast iron).
Right onto the logo. Here's the drawing generated from Auto-CAD on a PC. (Just like your Auto-Cad eh Al? ;D) The arrow in the middle is the origin so the CNC knows where the drawing is in space. Well after I tell it where it is.
A trip down to the scrap bin and a piece of aluminum awaits some tools to be waved at it. Its sitting on the program sheet generated for the logo.
i then looked for an empty pallet and brought it into the change station. We mostly use rail vices where we can and they are the business. The jaws can be moved up and down in 2mm increments and you can tighten the living crap out of them and nothing will move that you don't want to.
And a close up of a vice.
After a bit of filing to remove the skanky bits I put the material in position. Here I am ensuring the material is in the middle.
And tightened up ready to go into the machine.
Once I've brought the pallet in its time to sort out the workshift which basically tells the program where that little arrow is on the drawing.
To do this I use something familiar to all you alien abductees.................a Probe!
This is a measuring device used to find a surface and telling the machine where it is. Hopefully you can see the little red ball on the end of the white shaft. By gently moving the machine table until the ball touches (either the end or any side) and using the machine probe software the three main axis (X Y and Z) are recorded. This machine has a 4th axis which is rotation of the table but we aren't doing that today.
Heres the screen I look at to probe with.
Here I am probing the Y axis on top of the block. I'll do the bottom as well and divide by 2 and add it to either value, that will be the centre of the block and the centre of the logo as per that origin arrow. Since I already know the centre of my pallets I don't need to probe in X.
The final probe if the front face which I drop a millimetre to ensure any skanky bits are machined off.
Didn't think I would see a program in my machine with the word Bristol in the description!!!!
Heres the start of the engraving tool code. Lots of X and Y moves in this one!!
And we are away. This is a 80mm diameter facer which I machine the front of the material with.
And here is the engraving tool ready to do the logo.
And here it is after about 5 or 6 minutes.
Hmmm bit of chatter down the bottom, either the tool is a bit blunt or I need to do another light cut to clean it up. Spelt it right though!!
Looks better at a distance.
I showed it to Hamish (Mush) one of our Cad designers and he is happy to spend some more time and tidy up a few bits and pieces on it but as a first attempt its looking good.
