He said it was about letting the machine 'settle in' on a long aluminum job. I thought it was just old guy talk and ran it at 100% from the start. By part 30, we had a 0.003 inch taper on the bore from thermal growth. Had to stop, let it cool, and scrap the batch. That cost us about 4 hours and a chunk of material. Anyone else have a simple piece of setup advice they ignored and paid for?
Honestly, after we found the tool holder still in the spindle but the end mill buried in the scrap, I made the whole crew watch me run the drawbar force test three times in a row to prove the point.
The book says one thing, but the machine sounds tell another. I just go with what works.
Now I always do a dry run first (even if it feels like a waste of time).
Fixed a tricky error in our main program today thanks to the new stuff I learned lol
I run my CNC mill next to my table saw in the garage. The guys at work say metal shavings and wood dust should never mix, but I clean up after each job. Am I crazy for thinking this is manageable?
After so many tries, I got the finish I wanted on that stainless part. But why does the endmill last twice as long sometimes? It's driving me NUTS.