CNC Demo -- amazing

This has to be state of the art, quite a long video but a must watch hope you enjoy it.

**LINK**

very interesting, its almost hypnotic.

it amazes me that a machine that big can do such delicate work.

of course, the end result has absolutely no use except as a " this is what we can do" piece.

Roy.

Yes amazing but instead of looking at the whole " this is what we can do" piece, you have to look at the bit that mimics the part you are making.

All they have done is put 30 parts together in one 8 minute video.

The Aerospace company up the road from me have three of these, BTW they are 1/4 of a million each.

The other week they were making what could be best described as the front half of the sole off a trainer, bottom was a dead ringer but top was all angles and gussets, something for Airbus.

It was the same size as a trainer sole. From an alloy blank to finished and that included going round with a tiny radius cutter to remove all the burrs it took 48 minutes and to a tolerance of five microns which is repeatable by the sheer volume of coolant playing on the machine and part which in turn runs thru a refrigeration unit so the who machine runs at a constant temperature.

At the moment we can only boggle but 10 years ago we didn't even know the technology existed.

The old Chinese curse says my you live in interesting times, but is it actually a curse ?

**LINK**

i used to set and run three of these

Cooke Troughton & Simms would have loved a machine like that.

Have a look at these photos to show the "equivalent" that they devised.

... Fantastic rate of progress since then.

MichaelG.

Oh, CTS!!!!

Oh, microscopes!!!!!!!!

Oh, helical racks & pinions!!!!!!

Oh, Lomo & Leitz!!!!!

Oh, congealed ancient grease!!!!!!!

Oh, woe is me!!!!!!

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

.

Swarf,

I take you have suffered "the grease that turns to varnish"

When you have cleaned it all off ... use this stuff instead

[don't worry about the particularly inappropriate brand-name]

Absolutely amazing; and it's good on camera lens helical focusers too.

MichaelG.

Hi there, JohnF,

I apologise for horning-in on your thread. I did enjoy watching the video, it's very spectacular.

MichaelG, yes, on the focus block of a Leitz Ortholux! Thank you for your advice - I'll send you a PM some time soon.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

At 1.33 the centre hole is suddenly all wonky, by 2.02 it's straightened itself up again...

Intruiging to watch though

Edited By Ady1 on 05/10/2014 11:15:49

That is because they are not really making a part, but rather using it as a demo on what various types of processes and things that the machine is capable of being programmed.

The offset hole is just to show control between the rotating axis and the mill head rotated 90 deg.

Neil

Do you think I could fit one of these machines in my 5m by 3m wooden workshop, in a corner next to my Myford Speed 10 and VMB mill? At only £250000 each perhaps I should have two of them.

Doug

That's being a bit greedy Doug

However to put it in perspective I have recently seen an advert for a converted Warco mill to CNC, all singing etc for about £900 which is less that you would pay for a decent Myford.

It can probably be programmed to do 90% of what is in that video, albeit only one operation at a time and a very lot slower.

The point I am making and was trying to make in my post above is that the video is only a glimpse of what can be done.

Much of what industry turned out tears ago [ actually meant to type years but I'll leave the miss spelling in as I think it's rather fitting ] was done on pure manual machine often using loads of jigs and moved from machine to machine, some often specials and when not being used was a waste of resources.

I was actually at the Myford factory, pre sale day when they were pulling all the jigs off the racks and loading them straight into Simms Metals scrap skips. A couple of the Myford guys, retained for the grunt work of the auction were nearly in tears and one even remarked "They will never make them how we used to make them " Which in retrospect would make a fitting epitaph for the stone that goes on the old Myford site.

Take the headstock for example, about 16 jigs spread over 12 machines with "supposedly" a quality check done 17 times ?

I have been in China where a lot of machines are made now, in various price bands, and they are all done on machining centres, many operations at a time and some of the smaller ones are even done in one operation where the inbuilt accuracy of the machine is it's own quality check.

We cannot afford to go back, look back yes, but who today could afford a car / washing machine / lathe etc that was made by the old processes ?

I think that Myford's and Rover answered that question very well.

If you prefer an actual item being made : **LINK** and look for Matsuura Maxia: V8 Engine Block Machined From Solid

This started off as a solid block of aluminium, sorry the quality is not briliant.

Edited By Lofty76 on 06/10/2014 11:57:19