Supertuner Posted February 12, 2011 Report Share Posted February 12, 2011 I was wondering if there were any files to get. What ever is available in public domain, of course, and free. lol It would help me to faster get to actually making a more complex mold with out cad design. I'm more interested in my machine capabilites than cad skills currently, I know what they are. SO with limited time I'd like to start seeing what it takes(tooling, fixturing, etc) to make more complex molds. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Posted February 12, 2011 Report Share Posted February 12, 2011 Well that would be easy. But dont think there is such a public place. I talk to most of the mold makers here and with there info have come to a conclusion, They are all designing there own and not putting it in a public forum. Alot of work goes into what they do and giving it away is not good business practice. I know that there was a fued here once about this subject. Good luck in your quest. Frank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supertuner Posted February 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2011 Frank, Fued really? Wow, the fishing forum gets stranger. But, I didn't realize. But, now I have an idea. I see a lot of other similar types of things that do have such things, so I didn't think it was such an illogical leap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supertuner Posted February 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2011 (edited) Bob, I've got a mid 80's Chicago index mill with anilam retro fitted controls. It makes a lot of scary noises.lol But it is damn accurate. Less than .001 repeatability on a 3.5 inch circle(common use for the machine). And not taking a lot of time, it's pretty large. SOrt of the thing I'm wondering with it, using really small ball end mils in this larger machine. Of course you can I'm just wondering what type of accuracy I'm capable. I think really good. AS far as design soft ware I have autocad and several other good basic free cam nased software. The trick that I haven't look for, since I was just direct interfacing this machine for basic operations, is the driver software for the particular anilam system. What are you thinking? Edited February 12, 2011 by Supertuner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supertuner Posted February 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2011 (edited) I see where I made the comment about commercial quality molds, in reference to making my skills that good. I don't plan on going into business(seems a common thread around lol). I just like fishing, making lures, have a machine. 1+ 1 Edited February 12, 2011 by Supertuner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delw Posted February 12, 2011 Report Share Posted February 12, 2011 Dont take this wrong as its not meant to be. I program for people and have been programming for people and myself since the early 90's, Ive trained people how to program machines for a local machine company here as a side job in AZ as well.I also run my own shop. bottom line you would have to be an absolute fool to get a program from someone you dont know and run it on your equipment, especially off the internet. there are many reasons why, but the main reason is a program might crash then your out a machine and the time and everything else. is it worth the value of your machine to ruin it? I know what your thinking and most machinist think the same way. I will watch it and slow it up. thats both true and not true no matter how good someone thinks they are. a simple program with a few lines is no problem to watch the first run, However a 3d program your talking thousands of lines of code, just for a simple one. it never fails when someone thinks everything is going good they get lazy and trust worthy and then it happens you get the crash like no other crash you ever had, while most crashs in both 2d and 3d programming usually occour during the rapids or tool changes ( in between cavities changing tools and at the end of the tools) its not always the case, pretty much anyone can make a cad file and due to the cam software anyone THINKS they can generate cnc code with it, but thats not completely true. I've seen solids that look to be really good on the cad side be a complete nightmare on the cam side just to make the code and have nothing but big problems on output code. and this was done by Boeing engineers. Bobcad(especially) and Mastercam are perfect examples of things that go wrong for know reason at all especially in surfaces and in solids, ive seen them throw lines in code for no real reason just because the surface or solid file was broken where the mating surfaces meet. Some of the shops I run parts for, used to send me there machine files, I refuse to run them unless they give me a money order for the price of the replacement of the machine and tooling and down time. even the companies I program for will send me my own program and the parts when they dont have machine time for them, that they used and I still wont use it, you never know if anyone edited the program or not. is it really worth the price of your equipment/downtime ? the other problems is most 3d code will run more than the memory in most machines so it has to be dnc's, I have programs over 30 megs long and thats just the nc code for molds with out sub routines and using sub routines some programs are 10+ megs, which brings in a hole nother problem to worry about and thats sub routines and the code they use and how its interpeted by each individual control. Trust me its more of a head ach than its worth its faster and easier to set you own machine up, code your own machine for your own tooling, not to mention you will learn alot more about what your doing. Delw . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supertuner Posted February 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2011 (edited) The machine makes all kinds of neat little things all by itself, it's a full cnc 3 axis machine. NOt sure how you "use" one in jog mode. You mean simply moving it back and forth? I've actually hand programmed several bait molds already. SImply axis rotation, worms.lol I could do tool path checks on software. But, I can crash it all by myself. lol Bob let me look into finding a driver I need for this control. Edited February 12, 2011 by Supertuner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toadfrog Posted February 12, 2011 Report Share Posted February 12, 2011 Check out CNCzone.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
