If you could have one 5 axis as the only machine in your shop

[empower]

Did you use Hypermill in HyperCAD-S or another CAD system?

hypercad s and solidworks. both are utter trash for doing any kind of CAD work. only thing hypermill does better than NX is collision avoidance, meaning its just always there unless you specifically turn it off, and even then its a very small difference.

 

[Nerv]

Solidworks is trash for CAD? Once again I find this to be surprising as with only a few exceptions I find SW to be very efficient for CAD purposes especially when compared to Inventor, but I have never used NX so I can't comment on how those two differ. Is there a chance this is a comfort level based perspective or do you have some examples of how the CAD suffers in comparison?

 

[empower]

Solidworks is trash for CAD? Once again I find this to be surprising as with only a few exceptions I find SW to be very efficient for CAD purposes especially when compared to Inventor, but I have never used NX so I can't comment on how those two differ. Is there a chance this is a comfort level based perspective or do you have some examples of how the CAD suffers in comparison?

sorry, my mind wandered. SW is very easy to do CAD in. was only referring to hypercad s

 

[Nerv]

sorry, my mind wandered. SW is very easy to do CAD in. was only referring to hypercad s

I agree, I really tried to like HyperCAD-S but I wound up getting Hypermill to run in my SW just to leverage the efficiencies of the UI. It is unfortunate it has to tie up a seat of SW to do this, and that the two have to be made to work well together, but I think it is still worth it. When I first started with Hypermill in Solidworks some of the toolpaths didn't regenerate very quickly and this turned out to be an issue with the version of SW as well as the HM of that year. I upgraded everything and the problem went away with everything running very quickly. It isn't perfect but being able to work in a SW environment is very nice compared to some other CAM/CAD environments out there.

 

[empower]

I agree, I really tried to like HyperCAD-S but I wound up getting Hypermill to run in my SW just to leverage the efficiencies of the UI. It is unfortunate it has to tie up a seat of SW to do this, and that the two have to be made to work well together, but I think it is still worth it. When I first started with Hypermill in Solidworks some of the toolpaths didn't regenerate very quickly and this turned out to be an issue with the version of SW as well as the HM of that year. I upgraded everything and the problem went away with everything running very quickly. It isn't perfect but being able to work in a SW environment is very nice compared to some other CAM/CAD environments out there.

thats where NX is HANDS DOWN unbeatable. seamless native CAD and CAM is such a huge benefit. i could never program without that feature again.

 

[Tbarber]

I've ran Haas UMC, Hermle C22, 5 Axis DMG Mori, and now just recently got a Mazak Integrex I250. After learning how to setup and run it efficiently I think it's the best all round machine. And make parts from start to finish, bar fed, part off, robot picks up and puts on conveyor you can have 200 parts made in your sleep.

 

[LockNut]

i would caution against getting a machine from a builder with a control that they 'rarely' use. proper integration is PARAMOUNT. the fact that 90+% of their machines come with fanuc, means that they dont have a lot of experience integrating HH properly, and their techs might not have the needed knowledge to troubleshoot them.

Grob is easily in the same group as GF/Hermle, just better aligned with the pricier versions of GF/Hermle, therefore higher price. better than the entry level machines, about equal to GF/Hermle top end machines and roughly same price level.

I can attest to this statement. Sad but true. Add Siemens to the mix now also.

Edit: I will say this though. HH and Siemens are much easier to integrate than Fanuc. Yes, we may be mostly Fanuc but HH and Siemens are much more fluid in operation and they are easier to learn. A lot less is left to the MTB with HH and Siemens than Fanuc which makes them a breeze to get up and going, relatively speaking.

 

[PLC]

Neither of these things is true in this case.

A CNC mill control needs to be exported from Japan either as Full 5 or not, and both Japanese METI laws and the US/Japan trade agreement specify that a control cannot leave Japan as a 4 axis, then be upgraded to full 5 after export. As such, Brother has the standard D00 control on most machines, and offers the D00v for the full 5 axis mills - they are identical controls with the only difference being a firmware lock to keep a D00 from ever getting upgraded to a D00v.

D00 was designed from the ground up for full 5 axis - Brother had the older C00 control doing full 5 axis stuff for a few years, but their own assessment was that it didn't have the processing chops or encoder resolution. I know these were internal to Brother, but they never sold them, even in the Japanese market. The first "full 5" Brother is the M200 Xd1 5Ax.

My region has more U500s and M200 5Ax Speedios than anywhere in the country. These machines are performing *far* better than I ever pitched they would to users. Work that was running on *much* higher spec machines is moving on to these; surface finishes are comparable, accuracy is comparable - but cycle times are Speedio shorter and they cost 1/2 what anything else does.

Would I make a Speedio 5 axis my *only* machine though? I'm guessing for about 25% of the market, I would be able to say that is a good idea. It depends entirely on the goals and the parts you need to make - if everything fits in your hand and you are more volume oriented, or doing captive R&D work internal to a company? Absolutely! If you hung up your shingle as a job shop and need massive flexibility in both parts mix, materials, and a bigger envelope for larger parts? Probably not.

Where I am happy, is walking into any 5 axis shop with Hermles, Yasdas, Makinos, Grobs etc etc, and telling them instead of buying more $500k mills, they can buy a U500 5Ax for around $200k to free up their more expensive spindles, without having to change the process or give up much of anything.

Interesting. Is Brother providing the option to ship S series machines with the D00v control presently or is this something that is planned for the future?

 

[Rogue_Machinist]

At my old shop we had a Doosan Puma 5 Axis machine with pallets and pallet changer, no robots. And they were under $600k and had .0005" repeatability on all operations.

 

[gkoenig]

Interesting. Is Brother providing the option to ship S series machines with the D00v control presently or is this something that is planned for the future?

We import/stock the S700 27k with the full 5 Ax control. Yukiwa partnered with Brother to engineer their new dual direct drive 5 axis table to pair with it. The demos of it running are nuts - it might be the most dynamic 5 axis mill for small parts money can buy (short of $600k for a Kern or something super exotic).

 

[PLC]

That is awesome. I have a machine on special order being built right now. I would seriously consider purchasing the simultaneous 5 axis unlock as an option. Have you guys ever sold it as an option on a non stock machine?

Also, I would love to see some demo videos, do you have a link?

 

[Buns]

Yeah, this sound more like a DMG in USA problem, not necessarily relating to the people that designed or built the machines.

If you don't have knowledgeable people taking care of the machines then you are not going to have a good experience with them. Now it may be true that some models have more problems at first than others and DMG's could be worse for this than others I can't say. But once you properly diagnose and repair any initial problems the machine has it should be reliable from then on. Many manufacturers iron out these problems before they even leave the factory. Even a very small problem can leave a machine down and cost the owner a lot of money in downtime.

Sometimes it is a simple as making a bad selection of revision of a part that kills reliability. As an example... Siemens had a drive for the Simodrive 611 series that was of a certain size, I don't have the exact value handy. One revision they decided to have three IGBT's for output: 1 per phase.

Here is the problem - Those IGBT's were designed to output all three phases each so the input pin(s) are only having to take the current that would be needed to produce that on the outputs sequentially. Having them all being driven at once overloaded the input pins to the board and melting it down causing all sorts of problems. After figuring out this is what was wrong with my machine I ordered the newer revision of that drive (Which is plug and play) and wouldn't you know it? They changed how the IGBT's were laid out. That machine has never had a problem since in years. How is DMG or anyone else suppose to know their drive manufacturer all of the sudden produced an absolute DUD of a drive design? I don't think they pull them apart and take a look at these things? I've had drives of the same revision smaller and larger than that drive that were fine. It was just that specific size they totally messed up on.

Any machine that came with that spindle drive would be unreliable. I can only imagine how many machines that was. Easy fix that makes the machine bulletproof.

This leads to one of the the good aspects of Okuma machines. Single source for the control, motors, drives etc. Now if only the OSP500 didn't look like garbage and handled more like Sinumerik........