Anyone interested in cad files of 3d soft bait models?

[tmarcucci]

Hey,

I can model pretty much any soft bait out there as long as I have a model to use for take-off. If anyone is interested in doing a deal, let me know. I will model a Mann's 6" Jelly Worm and post it to this thread. The beauty of Cad is once I model it once i can scale a 6" to an 8" to a 10" with a click of the mouse. If anyone out there has CAD/CAM abilities and can take my models and cut molds, well the possibilities. I would be interested in entertaining a joint venture.

[cadman]

tmarcucci, as I do the same thing, I would like to talk to you about some things off line..........PM me if you are interested.

[Vodkaman]

As a cad designer, I have the same skills available to me.

I would be willing to offer my sevices in repayment for the knowledge received from TU, but would like to hear from someone like Del as to his requirements for CAD Data and would it really help.

You probably all realise that I am not in a position to positively contribute to this site because of my work commitments, but modelling a frog or two cold well be possible if the data was deamed useful.

[Delw]

Not trying to knock anyone but cad files from other people are a tricky thing,

most machine shops won't trust someone else's cad file to run on there machines. one mistake and you caused thousands of dollars worth of damage to the machines.

I personally never use someone else's cad file or cam file to run in my machines, of cource if they gave me a $100,000 certified check I might think about it , this way if my machine crashes I can buy another one fairly quickly.

I have had customers send them to me to use for there baits but I redraw everything based off that data, so the time factor doesn't really make too much difference.

Am I perfect no, but at least I know that if I crash it and ruin it, its my fault and not someone else's

anybody can get and draw a cad file anymore , there are so many programs out there that are easy to use and fairly cheap.

They are a lot better to get than a paper drawing as they are all 3 dimensionable.

Lastly the other problem rise's that if there is a mistake in that file unless I have the program I can't fix it, also every programmer programs differently and every cad software programs differently.

[tmarcucci]

The cad program I use is Autocad 2007. I just got a hold of 2008. If i'm not mistaken Autocad was the pioneering company that got Cad/Cam on it's feet. The machine should be able to run a check on the file before it even has to pick up a bit.

I'll still post some computer shots of the worm models I am making.

[GB GONE]

Post them up so we can check them out!! It was always interesting to me how the drawings look and how baits start out!!

Thanks for the input and offer!! Guys like you make our "dreams" into reality!!

Jim

[Delw]

autocad wont generate code for a machine, so a machine can't check it. everything from acad, needs to go through a dxf file,iges ext than exported to a cad-cam program to generate code.

[VANNDALIZER]

I agree with Del. I started using AutoCad and CadCam twenty some years ago and its come along way.

tmarcucci, what you may consider is doing drawing of hard baits(crankbaits, jigs ect,) For custom molds or for guys to convert to a file that they can print off at home to cut out crankbait blanks. I as well would like to see your posts. The possibilities are endless!

MAV

[tmarcucci]

Autocad can generate dxf files. The command is "DXFOUT" and like you said the CAM information that is required is within that file. You should be able to again like you said take this file to the machine.

Maybe it's time to give a little background information on myself. I am an architect. I have been using Autocad for 12 years and have used all of the releases from 14 to present. I have explored this program pretty intensely. I can tell you this program does a lot more than model. There is a great deal of information in the background you don't see.

[jmik26]

I use R14 and by no strecth of the imagination am I a pro at this but I can hold my own. I wish I could get my hands on some solid works. The things I have seen people do with that program is amazing.

On the machine end I guess there all different. The machines that I worked with or seen all have proximity and limit switches to ensure the head don't crash into the table. So if you did enter a bogus coordinate it will try then read axis over travel.

Anywho, I would be interested in seeing a file of some baits.

[Delw]

On the machine end I guess there all different. The machines that I worked with or seen all have proximity and limit switches to ensure the head don't crash into the table. So if you did enter a bogus coordinate it will try then read axis over travel.

I would love to buy one of those machine. but there is no such machine that I know of since the head will always be at different positions depending on the tool length, holder length etc. plus some people cut on parts right on the table and some people have a vise on the table which is above the table by anywwere from 2-5 inches and in some case's more.

Limit switches and over travel alarms are so the ball screw doesn't travel farther than the table, basically ramming the ball nut into the table damaging the ball screw and ball nut.

there is no machines that have a limit to stop the tool in head from hitting the table, since you can put in different lengths of tools there is no way to control it.

you also can't control that if a head is down in the table cutting and all of a sudden its makes a rapid move 10"s to the right or left hitting the head on the end of a vise. this would be all in programming.

BTW

even in a over travel the machine will still read the number and fly over there, when it hits the over travel switch it will kill the table, but the momentum will still cause it to hit the table in most case's, luckly most new machines have a clutch system built into it for sudden impacts and not hurt the ball screw's

Unfortunatly I can honestly say I have seen the worst crashes in the history of machines, having had employees when we had our areospace shop many years ago. but not to blame the employees for everything, I probally have the best crash in history.

a Brand new hitachi seiki machine with every option 3 weeks old valued at around 180k, no one new how to run it, I played with it at night every night when the boss's weren't around.

after a big meeting on why no one can run this machine, My neighbor blurted out that I could run it as I ran it every night on some rc race car wheels ( yeah he was doing e a favor), well I got called into the office and was asked/told to finish a job, no problem I did.

then was asked to set the next job up.

we'll it seems that the owner wanted to see how fast the machine would cut with ceramics ( 1990) and asked me to crank the speed up beyond belief under those conditions.

After saying I wasnt to certain about it, he said you don''t have enough experiance to know anything about this machine just do it. ok I was already under enough stress LOL so I did.

when I hit the button the machine ran to 5000 rpms instantly unfortunately the bar in the back of the machine came loose by the chuck and went out of balance walking out the back end.

this caused the 9000lb machine to go approx 2-3 feet straight in the air and turn side ways, sending the bar through the concrete roof making a nice nick in it. My friend who had a big mouth and told the owners I could run it had just walked by the back of the machine, 10 seconds later he would have been killed.

I walked outside never saying a word smoked 2 packs of cigarettes then got in my truck and went home. I showed up when they closed to survey the damage. OUCH

Since we were a full fledge machine shop everything from chrome plating to grinding and them some. and it was a 3 day weekend just starting, I decided to have this machine up and running by tuesday morning.

I rebuilt and balance the actuator, spindle ,hose ,sheet metal and everything else that was done in the damage. put it all together and had balance problems. monday morning I was working and the owner came in and was pretty shocked. we discussed the balance problems and and figured a service call or a phone call could tell us how to fix it.

by tuesday it was running production around 11am.

6 months later we had huge layoffs, I was just a hand mill and lathe guy, dalso doing grinding and plating and all mechanic work.

I was the last one called into the office, I was givin a $11 and hour raise and put in charge of the shop unofficially(owners son was officially the boss). Thats was my punishment.

Then to make it worse I did service calls for the local company who sold Hitachi here in the valley and some programming training and demos.

Delw

[Gloomisman]

Dang Del you did a number on that thing. But you were just following orders. Not your fault just the guy that was told to push the button.

[cadman]

Ok guys, since I am a part of the programming world hence the name (Cadman) I will put my worth in. Now before any one gets all bent out of shape, I

[Delw]

Cadman

those laser are awsum, just before 911 we were going to buy a laser or a waterjet for the shop.

what nesting software do you use?

[jmik26]

Yikes thats one hell of a bad day. We have a Huge Monarch Vertical CNC and a milltronics vertical cnc and it has switches to not allow the head to hit the table, I swear. This might have been done becuase we only run 5 different production parts on it and there is no need for the head to go near the table. Maybe a safety feature added in custom to prevent this from happening? I have seen bits snap off because the tool height was not set properly for a certain tool, but thats about it.

[Vodkaman]

Cadman and DelW. Yes, I understand your problem regarding quality of the CAD data. If I had invested that amount of money, I would be reluctant to trust anyones data. It was for this reason that I requested input from you.

In my current job, I am working with models drawn by another company, most of my time is spent re-drawing the data. Lots of tangency and connection problems. The program that I use is Catia V5.

I did have some metal cut last year, by plasma. The engineer who processed my DXF's told me that my job was the first customer data that he had ever processed without any problems. Big headed? Maybe, but the point is that you cannot trust anyones data. Thank's Del and Cadman, interesting post.

[Delw]

its only a bad day when you do it to a machine you own and have to pay for it. they used to have insurance that covered that too, it was pretty expensive but when you had employees its was worth it, especially ones that don't pay attention and like to fiddle with numbers to make things go faster.

more than likely they set the over travel limits , I am guessing they use the same tool lengths all the time and the same size tool holders lengths for the 5 different production parts they run.

I know TRW does that on some machines that run the same part day in and day out for years. this way there is no mistake and no crashes, they also set there x and y limits as well so the head won't accidently bump the 4 and 5th axis attachments. On the old acrolocs TRW even reset the home switchs on some of there machines so they wont have a chance of wacking the 4th and 5 axis.

one of our vendors suggested we do that on one of our old acrolocs a long time ago to prevent it from bumping the casting (casting was 19" tall). we didn't sence the job only ran for a year and had to be torn down for other jobs in between this one job, but it was scary every time you pushed the button and watched a $8k casting move with in a few inches of the head.

Thing that sucked for us is we did a few finish holes. 8 min operation at the very end. then shipped them. $50 per part on our end. kinda sucks if you scrap em gotta do a lot of $50 parts to pay for a 8K finished casting lol.

Job shops its tough to run limit switch's on machines like that as we can run anything from a standard 1/16 endmill on a 2" extension holder and then run a 6" extension holder with a 6" long endmill the same day.

Hey that monarch is that one of the old cat 40 spindles or the old cat 50? had a big tool carrage ( like A belt that held a heck of alot of tools that went along the side of the center colum) drank power faster than the hoover dam could put it out?

My buddy that rebuilds equipment had one of those in cat 40 ( maybe it was BT 40) we ran a few molds on it for a test after it was rebuilt. it was I think a 5k or 6k RPM spindle.

the thing was like 8-10 feet tall about 10-15 feet wide and only had a 40" table on it with no sheilds. and a 15,000lb forklift couldn't pick it up.

he retrofited it with a fagor control and a faster spindle and a few other things.

[cadman]

Delw.........We use Metalsoft for nesting all of our pieces on our turrets and laser. It is probably the most used software for this application there is. there are others but majority of sheet metal job shops use this. I actually worked for another company that had a water jet. There are pros and cons for both.The laser can not cut copper or som brass due to the shiny surface. The reflectivity of the material screws up the mirrors in the machine, and the machine gets confused. We tried blue dye chem years ago, it's a pain in the ***. You can buy material with laser paper, but there is still a problem with copper. This is where water jet shines. Both machine can cut thick material. The water jet can cut faster thick material than a laser. You mentioned workers trying to push machines past there limits. Laser guys do this a lot to make faster cuts and get done. The only problem with this is the faster the cut the more jagged it gets. Then the part looks like crap. This doesn't work by us.

Vodkaman........I commend you on your compliment from your customer. I don't think your big headed at all. I also personally feel that I am one of the best cad and programmers our company has. I am not the best in the whole world, as I know there are a lot of guys out there that just can blow me away. On the flip side, I am damn accurate on my work I have to be. No-one checks my work. So if I'm wrong guess what, I get the blame. I have always been very meticulous to anal about my cad work. But that's just me.

[Delw]

Cadman and DelW. Yes, I understand your problem regarding quality of the CAD data. If I had invested that amount of money, I would be reluctant to trust anyones data. It was for this reason that I requested input from you.

In my current job, I am working with models drawn by another company, most of my time is spent re-drawing the data. Lots of tangency and connection problems. The program that I use is Catia V5.

I did have some metal cut last year, by plasma. The engineer who processed my DXF's told me that my job was the first customer data that he had ever processed without any problems. Big headed? Maybe, but the point is that you cannot trust anyones data. Thank's Del and Cadman, interesting post.

no your not big headed at all, i've seen both some bad stuff and some good stuff.

Delw.........We use Metalsoft for nesting all of our pieces on our turrets and laser. It is probably the most used software for this application there is. there are others but majority of sheet metal job shops use this. I actually worked for another company that had a water jet. There are pros and cons for both.The laser can not cut copper or som brass due to the shiny surface. The reflectivity of the material screws up the mirrors in the machine, and the machine gets confused. We tried blue dye chem years ago, it's a pain in the ***. You can buy material with laser paper, but there is still a problem with copper. This is where water jet shines. Both machine can cut thick material. The water jet can cut faster thick material than a laser. You mentioned workers trying to push machines past there limits. Laser guys do this a lot to make faster cuts and get done. The only problem with this is the faster the cut the more jagged it gets. Then the part looks like crap. This doesn't work by us.

Vodkaman........I commend you on your compliment from your customer. I don't think your big headed at all. I also personally feel that I am one of the best cad and programmers our company has. I am not the best in the whole world, as I know there are a lot of guys out there that just can blow me away. On the flip side, I am damn accurate on my work I have to be. No-one checks my work. So if I'm wrong guess what, I get the blame. I have always been very meticulous to anal about my cad work. But that's just me.

Oh I know what you mean, try running your own areospace shop for a bunch of years then try to build a wall extension LOL 1/16 of an inch Crap thats huge.

I've played with the smartcam nesting software one of my customers had it was pretty cool he has an new laser at the time for sheetmetal is was in 1996 or 97.

do the lasers cut sideways when they go fast like the waterjets do? I know the waterjets would angle/deflect pretty bad if going to fast. I would assume the laser wouldnt deflect sideway just give you a jagged finnish.

I learned about the shinny stuff for lasers, we were looking at a small CO2 laser to do nothing bu serial number parts using a 4th axis, when testing it on inconel we had that problem, they tried it with a paste that we would spread over the part but it just didnt work that well. too bad cause that little machine was pretty cool expensive but cool. the parts we need to etch were .188 dia and a 6 digit serial number had to go around it.

I liek talking machine shop stuff.

[Vodkaman]

Well, now we're onto machines, there have been a couple of posts on the hard baits forum, discussing the possibilities of small router systems that could be economic for a small business. Hoodaddy suggested 'maxnc'.

Do either of you chaps have opinions on this or similar equipment.

As Hoody mentioned at the time, user support for such machines is low priority by these manufacturers, so you are basically on your own. Without wanting to diminish your vast skills and experience, is it feasible as a learn yourself enterprise, to get to a stage where I could machine some simple moulds for myself, or would I be better off taking some course. Has anyone else gone this route?

[Delw]

Well, now we're onto machines, there have been a couple of posts on the hard baits forum, discussing the possibilities of small router systems that could be economic for a small business. Hoodaddy suggested 'maxnc'.

Do either of you chaps have opinions on this or similar equipment.

As Hoody mentioned at the time, user support for such machines is low priority by these manufacturers, so you are basically on your own. Without wanting to diminish your vast skills and experience, is it feasible as a learn yourself enterprise, to get to a stage where I could machine some simple moulds for myself, or would I be better off taking some course. Has anyone else gone this route?

Personally I wouldnt play with the little cheap machines, just because I know nothing about them and or wood cutting. so I can't give you an answer either way, or at least and honest answer.

as far as learing yourself, all it requiers is some time on a hand mill and hand lathe, once you got the feeds and speeds down on how things work then you should be ok.

Too many people think" hey I am going to be a programmer and make a killing" only to goto school and pay out the wazoo for the class's then show up at a job and get fired in 2 weeks cause they didnt understand machining. The only thing they learn in school is how to make the program do different things and trust me some of those guys know the program inside and out and can do a lot more tricks than guys who have been doing it for 10-20 years with no school.

They don't know the whys or how much or even the whens, this is all learned the best way on a hand machine.

as they say so learning anything is well worth it, maybe a machine shop local would let you come in and look around?

[Vodkaman]

Thankyou Del, that is sensible and encouraging advice. I think that I am technically minded enough to pick up the programming side from a manual, as I did with all the CAD programs over the years.

I think the main thing is the 'hands on' bit, to get a feel for the materials and forces in play. I have to admit that big machines scare me, could be just a healthy respect.

I will also get some time with a programmer to pick his brains. This is all at the planning stage, probably six months or more before I order a machine, but I have made up my mind in this direction now.

A small machine would probably struggle with ally, so after wood, I was thinking of a plastic (no grain to worry about) or my preferred idea, resin cast into a convenient block size. Resin polishes up nicely, will it machine OK?

I plan to cut male mould masters for hard baits and from them cast RTV moulds for production. By machining the male master, sharp edges and corners will be easier to achieve and the master can easily be polished to the required finish. Does this all sound reasonable?

I think that this machining hijack is very relevant, anyone who produces CAD models has to be thinking in this direction.

[cadman]

Thankyou Del, that is sensible and encouraging advice. I think that I am technically minded enough to pick up the programming side from a manual, as I did with all the CAD programs over the years.

I think the main thing is the 'hands on' bit, to get a feel for the materials and forces in play. I have to admit that big machines scare me, could be just a healthy respect.

I will also get some time with a programmer to pick his brains. This is all at the planning stage, probably six months or more before I order a machine, but I have made up my mind in this direction now.

A small machine would probably struggle with ally, so after wood, I was thinking of a plastic (no grain to worry about) or my preferred idea, resin cast into a convenient block size. Resin polishes up nicely, will it machine OK?

I plan to cut male mould masters for hard baits and from them cast RTV moulds for production. By machining the male master, sharp edges and corners will be easier to achieve and the master can easily be polished to the required finish. Does this all sound reasonable?

I think that this machining hijack is very relevant, anyone who produces CAD models has to be thinking in this direction.

I know what those machines do, however I know nothing about how to program them or run them. I will tell you one thing, if you have a good cad backround and are meticulous about doing things right (and it seems you already have that based on the info you shared here), you will have no problem getting it up an running. You already have the cad side which you know has to be accurate and precise. With hands on time, on the machine, you will figure it out. If they have a tech support team to guide you through a lot of your questions, that's sometimes is worth its weight in gold, instead of doing trial and error. Let us know if and when you decide to do this venture. If I can be of some help down the road PM me.

[jmik26]

Del- I think its a Monarch VMC-150. I just looked and it holds 40 tools on a huge belt. Its a great machine when its running but to keep it that way is a PITA. Between the pnuematic valves and the testy tape drive it can drive a person nuts. It is 460v but still sucks a ton of power. RPM's im not too sure but it gets up there. I guess at one time they had a genius CNC/Repair man that worked on this thing so anything is possible with setting the limits.