Screwing Up our 5th Axis HAAS Mounting Plate!
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- Screwing up - then fixing - a mounting plate for our Raptor Vise for our HAAS 5th Axis!
Buy an SMW Mini Pallet! bit.ly/VisePallet
Filmed with amzn.to/2iLiGCO
Music copyrighted by John Saunders 5 Reasons to Use a Fixture Plate on Your CNC Machine: bit.ly/3sNA4uH
Thanks for sharing the frustrating moments. I appreciate the honesty and transparency.
"This could go poorly " around 19:25 just killed me. I've yet to meet a machinist who hasn't thought that on a job with questionable fixturing
"i should really ask for a raise" is the one i heard the most :)
100% rapid while proving a program and confident enough to walk away.... you got balls
Hes making a small aluminium rectangle, easy. I never run any program twice
Hey, that's why he can come up with crash videos so frequently.
No, he’s got CAM.
John,
One approach to work holding to machine the bottom of the adapter parallel:
Mount the vise to the adapter plate
Mount your best 2-4-6 block into your orange vise with enough sticking above the jaws to grab securely
Use the HAAS probe to check the top surface parallelism of the 2-4-6 block to the machine X-Y plane
Flip your fifth-axis adapter/vise combo upside down and grab the 2-4-6 block with the vise
The vise should provide more than adequate grip
The finished adapter bottom should be parallel to whatever surface of the fifth-axis vise is registering against the 2-4-6 block. If the 2-4-6 block is parallel to the HAAS and the vise is precision made, I think this could be a viable setup.
Great content. Keep it coming.
That little clip of the 5 axis at the end!! Can't wait to see the full thing!
John... Just thought I'd tell you that I really like your commentary as the videos are going. I gain a ton of insight every time I watch one of your vids. Rock on brother!
I have a tip for you that will help your set ups. Ive been an Aerospace Machinist for 7 years and one thing i learned is to put a forward Slash "/" before your M8/M08. Then press the "Block Delete" key and the coolant will not come on due to the Haas skipping over that line of code. Try it!
Nice work john
don't beat yourself up over issues when doing new things it's all a learning process and I appuald your for sharing all with us.
many thanks
mark
over the pond in the UK
Watched to the end, I actually think how you fixed the issue in the end is the best possible way to make that anyways. I learned that the hard way myself, making fixtures for my manual rotary, best to machine your bores and mounting features but leave .02 on the floors and walls to be cleaned up on the rotary itself when the fixture is in place. Then you have as dead nuts of a fixture as you could hope for.
NYC CNC- teaser at the end has me salivating for new video now! Lol Keep up the great work. Your honesty is contagious!
With the coolant splashing onto windows you can use the thru the spindle coolant. Use a retention knob with a hole, use a ER16 or ER32 collet holder. The coolant comes out of the slots in the collet. To reduce the window splash you could change tools don't turn on the coolant pump until the machine is at the z clearance plane, turn the coolant on, dwell for 1-2-3 seconds until the coolant is working. Great video!
I've said it a few times but it bears repeating. Thank you for giving us your frustrations and goofs!
You could try putting a set of parallels under your part with those soft jaws. Also you might want to think about milling a round boss on the bottom of the fixture so it aligns it with the center hole on your platter on the trunnion.
That 5 axis trundle is insane, love it. I was surprised to see that the new modern controller didn't keep the previous probe dimensions in memory. The model before that one does. Cheers Aaron
Thank YOU John for sharing all your knowledge and hard work with us.
Extra eyes never hurt and often help when solving a problem. A tech or sales rep has some times seen or had to deal with a problem similar to the one you face in another shop and help apply that solution to your problem
to your question about surface grinding aluminum, you can just as long as you block it in with 1-2-3 blocks or 2-4-6 blocks. I work at a tool making shop and most of our molds are 6160, QC-10, hokotol and CT-j aluminum.
Hey John I take it you don't have the enclosure de mist system? If you're blowing off a lot of coolant you really may want to look into it. I installed one on my lathe and reduced my coolant consumption from about 5 gallons every 2 weeks to about 5 gallons every 3 months or so! It doesn't save all that much water but it really saves a ton of coolant concentrate so you'll have to watch the concentration.
Also you will get a lot of carry off with the chips in aluminium, plastic and most other 'fluffy' material, the oil really stick to it for some reason that is above my pay grade. DIY chip centrifuge! Every time I run aluminium or plastics I find that my coolant concentrate consumption will at least double if not triple.
Another tip is use the conveyor timer, time one minute for every 3 that works awesome on my lathe and just keeps up with the production. This gives more time for the coolant to run back out of the chips in the conveyor instead of it dumping wet chips in the bin.
Keep up the good work!
Plus the mist collectors will keep the humidity of the shop down when the machines are running. All that mist is going all over otherwise and you'll breathe easier.
Always a good idea to skim cut any fixture wile it's loaded on the rotary.
Hey John, I had an idea the other day to possibly make the window on the cnc a bit more usable with flood coolant, you might be able to put some rainX on there.
It is usually used for car windscreens to make them hydrophobic, and Im not sure how it would interact with the coolant, bit it might be worth testing
Haas tech beat me too it. Always skim cut your sub plates/adapter plates after bolting to what ever you're bolting them too. Counter bored cap screws are best for this.
Thats so you know for sure its relative to spindle, no way that came out parallel hes holding so little and over tightened vise. Definitely bowed. You should always use steel, cheaper too
Just got an apprenticeship. These are great. Aerospace is an exciting industry. Only wish titaniums feed rate was that fast. Feel like I'm waiting for water to boil sometimes
Can't wait for some 5 axis action on the haas keep it up nice work
Hey John, once you mounted the vise on the aluminum base you could then use the surface grinder because the vise would be attracted by the magnet...
Hey John,
One trick would have been to use a DTI mounted in a surface gauge and measuring from the table to the back of the work, so you could 'adjust' it level before facing.
John, I would be careful tapping your material down with the Talon grips. Have had a few operators do the same thing and break them.
I like using a 3 jaw chuck on mill a for round stock holding. Just lay it flat on the table and you can hold round things no problem.
oh, i feel so much better now to see that even professionals dont change the 1001.nc
its so good to see that even pros are making"mistakes"...im just starting my carrier and am less affraid :P
Nice vises. I have a set of their 4.5" double vise. They feel so great to use.
You can surface grind aluminum you just need a way to hold it down and keep the surface covered in oil to help keep the wheel from loading up. I've done it it can be scary but it works
The tool changer you have is great, don't be concerned about the speed
How about an aluminum manifold that is attached at the top of the window inside that blows air down the window to clear the coolant? You have air at the VM3 and can use Pex tubing to connect to the manifold. You can use adjustable inserts to adjust the air flow and angle against the window. You should get pretty decent clearing to video. You probably can assign a gcode relay on/off to turn in on/off automatically.
Talon pro tips:
- Make 8" wide jaws
- Make them out of steel
- Use 1 Talon per 2" of material (so 4 for that 8" wide stock)
- Use the 32050 part with 0.07" grip on aluminum (you can go lower, but a lot of extruded stock often has an annoying corner radius that won't grip).
- Use the 32075 part for a set of jaws for steel/harder stock, with 0.08 or 0.09" of grip...the 30275 is taller.
Get those versa grips closer together to allow the part not to touch the orange vice no? it might still not be ideal but at least it will be flat
...If you're worried about hitting the toolsetter with something, could you come up with a cover for it? Something that would drop down over it and bolt to the table to protect it when not in use.
You would have to make very sure that it will be ok to use on the window surface, but on my car, I have very good luck with a treatment called "Rain-X". You would have to make sure that no long term use would be a problem.
The HAAS, is quite the machine.
Have Fun !!!!!!
Michael from Gig Harbor, Washington (state)
Coolant loss with TSC is due to the large amounts of atomized mist they produce. Makes it easier for it to evaporate into the air, especially during the winter when the air is dry due to the heating system. I'm also sure the grates on the return air registers are a glorious sticky dried coolant mess right now 😆
A mist collector will help with coolant mist getting everywhere, won't help with the loss of coolant though. That's unfortunately just the price to pay for TSC drilling.
When facing a large round part like that, use a spiral path around the part, it applies the tool force directly towards the center of the part, as well as taking off even amounts around the part. Your .004" flatness error is probably caused by the facemill rocking the part as it passed from one side to the other.
Also. Easy fix, leave .01" on the roughing facmill op, and make a second op to clean up the last .01", then put an M1 between the two so you can unclamp, and reseat the part flat before milling to final finish height.
I know it sounds like a PITA but it really isn’t once you do
it a few times.
Using a micrometer measure the part for parallel, write the
numbers on it with a sharpie.
Starting with the thinnest sweep it with an indicator, and
move the part until it matches the numbers. You are basically dialing in the
bottom side.
5 AXES? WOW SO COOL. I cant image what you can do . so cool
Maybe countersink bolt holes so you could easily surface when needed? We all have those times when we have things go south and they just seem to keep stacking up. The key is keeping at it till you get what you want. :-)
John, try some RainX on the inside of the doors for clearer filming. Should make the flood coolant bead up and drain off the glass faster.
If you have to use washers for spacing again, try using snap rings instead. Still not ideal but they're usually a lot more consistent in thickness!
Just a thought, should you invest in some other good brand digital mic's instead of shars? Especially if you measuring tenths?
Speed up your tool changes by removing the G28 Z0. from your post processor, Move the Z up to a clearance level, then call your M6T# from the clearance level, it'll speed it up and take care of itself, the tool flips down while Z is going up. Downside(and also upside) is that the tool stays down on option stop.
I would be careful hammering with talon jaws, ive broken the hardened tips off, and I would crank the vise, loosen, then just snug the vise back to help prevent bowing the part.
We have a plastic job on our ST-10 that we do. We loose tons of coolant since it sticks to the plastic chips like glue. I would try to not run the chip conveyor at night and let the coolant drop off. We can't do that for our plastic job because plastic gets everywhere and forms really big, loose chips that get in the way fast. Best of luck! Our coolant (Castrol Hysol) is I think around $200/5 gals. I feel your pain! Even our coolant supplier feels bad!
why not drop the chips from the conveyor into a clean bucket with an offset screen mesh near the bottom - blow some air from time to time on them and recover your precious coolant that way?
John you could install air wipe or air curtain to blow the coolant away from the window
Yes you can surface grind aluminum... green wheel works great it's just figuring out how to hold the washers down
Good video, as always, enjoyed experiencing the real life 'oh shit' moments and solutions, none of this "here's one I prepared earlier" BS :-) Enjoyed the tease at the end, something mesmerizing about the tool tracking 5 axis around a contour :-) Also my SMW clamps arrived today (on the other side of the pacific), so big thank you for the excellent packaging and the nice finish on the parts.
A suggestion for next time, tap the holes and screw the plate to a block that you can hold firmly in the vise while "decking" the other side: if you want a totally flat surface over the round.
Otherwise, you could have milled down outside the seating area of the 5-axis vise to give yourself parallel steps high enough to grip with and to clear the talon jaws.
You don’t want to lift the part? Use right hand cut left hand spiral end mills. That’s what I used on chucking parts up on vacuum fixture without clamps.
congrats on the 5th axis!
Yes you can surface grind aluminum. Obviously, you can't use a magnetic chuck and you have to use a special silicon diamond something or other wheel specific for aluminum as well.
John, have you thought about using Rain-X or Carnuba wax on you view windows? Will help sheet the water based lubricant. There's got to be a chemical that will sheet the coolant off the window.
you should mount the vise on the plate and hold ta vise in the orange vise upsidr down and machin the plate ...that should give you clamping force and the flatnes you need
Re. not having a spinning window - maybe a quick fix would be to blow compressed air at the centre to drive the liquid outwards.
John, I love you have lots of machine lingo now, "balls to the wall", "bonkers" etc, etc, really appreciate your work and attention to detail at times, you are self taught is that correct? Amazing! :-)
if you're having issues with your tool cycle being too far apart you could always move your tools for short operations closer together. or you could even have dedicated tools for each cycle.
John I'm sure you know this by now, but when you probed the part and it failed because you were a little off center, you just need to handle jog to center, then hit MDI and hit cycle start and it will run the same probing routine you last ran.
So this video was before you had the grinder up and running I take it? Could have made some nice ground spacers with that thing I bet.
All the machines at my work have the vis-port spinny windows on them. I personally don't think they're that great at keeping coolant off them. If you get one, I would suggest modifying it slightly, putting a wiper sort of thing on it to wipe the coolant oil off as the oil in the coolant sticks to it.
ikr your fear of damaging the tool setter. We have a machine with a laser tool setter which is incredible expensive. So we grabede some scratch metal and welded it together to form a box to protect the tool setter. Mounted with 2 screws and easy to remove ;).
Decking it off once it is mounted in the machine is the obviously 'right' way. The same concept as grinding in the table and mag chuck on a surface grinder.
Using a lathe, as others have mentioned, would be a good way to get it somewhere from pretty close to really close, but it would have been a second op, and more time.
Perhaps after you had cut the round edge you could have run a pass to mill the remaining square surface flat. The just flip the part over in the standard jaws, seat the milled surface on the top of the jaws, and mill the back flat. Then you can use the fancy jaws to hold the circle while you adaptive mill the same circle in the remaining stock. If you are off a few thou on holding the part flat in this op it won't matter much.
Thank you so much for providing us such a valuable information. God bless you.
I'd have just bored some soft jaws in the lathe and faced it. Super easy, fast as and getting it parallel within 0.005mm or 0.0002" isn't terribly hard. Milling it flat on the trunion is by far the best way to go though. It will remove any errors from not having the 5th axis flat, square etc..
Couldn't you just move the versa grips closer together therefore having less stock tangential on the vise.
Logan McCleary it wouldn't be as rigid but might have worked though.
I agree but he is only cleanin up the left over of the stock.
5 minuts of moving them and going a but slower on speeds and feeds ,i think would be better than making special soft jaws. Vegandiver..
surface grind the washers ?
Can Fusion do simultaneous 5th axis CAM? I know they just got 4th up and running. Totally jealous of the setup you got! :)
Would love to see more of the haas
Move the versagrip posts in by one hole. It shouldn't affect the grip by much but it would move the vise jaws apart enough to miss the part.
EDIT: I should read the other comments before posting.
(Some weird audio around 25-26 minutes; a sort of ping-pong stereo with the sound getting louder and softer in the right and left speakers.)
6:25 The tool changer is slow partly because it's arms are stupidly long. Don't know why Haas didn't make a tool changer better designed so that the pockets can sit closer to the spindle so that shorter ATC arms can be used.
Also, the Haas controller has a pocket registry for each tool. So what I do, for some programs if some of the tools have a quick cycle is to optimized the order manually. Pocket 1 becomes the 1st called out, and Pocket 2 is the 2nd called out, etc. This way, they are grouped fairly closer, if your Standard tool list is using Tool 1 then Tool 20, it doesn't have to cycle through potentially 20 pockets to get it.
Could probably have super glued the part to a piece of flat stock, held in the vice. Would have to tone down the feedrate and cut depth, but it might have worked. Then just heat up the flat stock with a torch afterwards to break the superglue.
Hey John, drop small ball bearings in hole and tighten. Better then washers.
John, for small holes, use gauge pins to the right dia. of the holes.. It's faster.
Love the video and looking forward to the 5th axis videos in action. I don't recall you ever doing a video on carbide endmills. Similar to what this Old Tony did recently on what you use for the CNC mill, specially for aluminum! Would be a great video! :)
You should try and pickup the Dixie tool chamfer mill and see what you think about it
It's my fav chamfer ever
thinking of Filming. Would a air jet mounted facing the window at an angle clean a section big enough to run the camera?
As always, love the videos. Stupid question, but wouldn't a quick trip to the lathe make short work of decking the sub plate flat/parallel?
Keep up the great work!
Hello, try synthetic coolant, its almost as clear as water.
yes you can surface grind alloy use tallow on wheel, kerosene spray
Would it not have been easier to make a truncated circle (which is easier to grip) for the face mill op?
Not sure if and how it would apply in this case but aren't there downcut (left twisted) endmills if you worry about pulling workpiece up?
Dont be so hard on yourself man! Keep up the great work!
What we do at work is make our adapters out of steel. Then we surface grind them flat.
what you shoulda did;
ream the holes for the dowel pins,
made a circle pocket in some soft jaws to hold the 7+ inch diameter.
APPLY 2 coats of Rain-x to the inside of the glass, should bead up pretty good for better vis !
Hi John. Have you looked into super hydrophobic coatings for keeping your glass clear?
How come you chose aluminium for the adaptor plate? Will you not have problems with wear?
Just toss that plate on the engine lathe and face both sides. It should be good and flat/parallel.
Do Tormach machines not support toolwear offsets like the Haas? I wouldn't be able to survive without those on the vf5 I run at work.
Hi John, can I ask what inserts you're using on your Sandvik face mill?
I'm new to machining, and we've got a Sandvik 4" face mill (RA245-102R38-12M) at work, I'm running it on a Fadal 4525 and I've been getting long, stringy chips when face milling on light cuts on aluminum - so I just picked up some 24512 AL H10 inserts in the hopes that they will break chips better... but seeing how your mill worked, I'm really curious as to what inserts you're using... Thanks!
I would have countersunk your plate, and then done the final facing on the table you want to match it to. I have a base tooling plate on my Haas that only has locating pins in it. Pallets that sit on top of it are faced for a particular position they sit in, so they are flat for the work environment. They are not flat on a surface plate, but they are flat in comparison to the mill.
Glad my old boss didnt get a text message every time i had a cnc mishap. wow haas trying to get operators in trouble...
jk. thats a cool feature.
LOL yeah I was just thinking about that. Our boss doesn't know shit when it comes to the CNC's we have in the shop, but he is a friggin expert at chewing ass whenever we tell him we had an issue with something the following day. The text message feature would definitely get us rolled over the coals just that much quicker.
MLTomson ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
haha, you beat me to it as usual. facing the plate in-setup is how I think I would have gone from the beginning. just takes the variables right out.
If you cant mount something in a vise, say its to large or oddly shaped how would you fasten it to the machine table?
hey @NYC CNC you can use a Magnet type Cleaning spondge like they have in fish tanks, it works for me very well ! Greetings Adrian
john nice work.
you are probably losing coolant with the through spindle drills because when using the through coolant drills you are cranking parts and making bins of chips, each chip has a little moisture on it. That adds up.
Just like various brands of shredded tuna. They have a lot more surface area and so it gets bulked out by water. I pressed 2 small cans through a sieve and obtained 1/3 cup of water.
Spinning those chips in a basket could reclaim the coolant.
Perhaps run the bagged chips in an old spin dryer. 😀
Salad Spinners are $9.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond. You might even be able to connect it to an Arduino.
just add to your post to turn on the conveyor for tool 1 and then turn it off and leave it off for the rest of the part cycle. chips will still get conveyed automatically but you won't end up with a full time coolant conveyor. it saves a lot and it's just a post tweak.
You mentioned going thru alit of coolant.... Most of it is prolly evaporation. .. if that's the case... If you normally run 8% and just the water evaporates.... You should only add maybe 3%
sometimes you learn more when you make mistakes !
Thanks for sharing a "it didn't go to plan" video
No!! there are jobs , like machining large casts , that you can't make mistakes. He could face it in one side and then he could finish it in the trunion. Every machinist knows that