Chris pointed out to me that the YouTube link to the recent post regarding the Komo Router at Studwell was broken. Sure enough, the video disappeared for some reason. I've uploaded it again, so here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1v5SK6Y0JQ

Please let me know if it disappears again!

Warren

Christmas Party 2009

We had a great time last week at the old Kellogg House at Cal Poly. Here are a few pictures that Karen Rockwood took. If anyone else has some, let me know. Thanks Karen!

Warren

Komo Router problem

A few months ago, Greg Rockwood and I traveled to Salt Lake City to ITT's composite facility (formerly EDO) to investigate problems with a 5 Axis Komo Router. Since it was new, the machine had centerline problems with the A axis. We were even asked to quote a retrofit for the Fanuc 150 control so the Siemens Traori pivot point compensation could be added. I discouraged that and Greg and I verified that there was a real mechanical problem. Here is a video showing what the guys at Studwell found after shipping the whole Z, A, and C assembly back here. Only one half of the head has a problem.

Persistence pays.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2rQqasUK20



Warren

The end of GEFanuc

Well, its official: The end of GEFanuc. As of last Friday, GEFanuc no longer exists. Karl and Stan both work for Fanuc America now. We don't think this will have a very large impact on us, although parts were cheaper through GEFanuc. Apparently, the Express ordering system will stay in place for retrofitters. We've not heard if they are going to change our multiplier yet. We'll see.

Verizon problems

Bill tells me that he's experienced several instances of delayed texts and voice mails recently. Has anyone else been having problems?

Dprnt Project at Circle Machine

Gilbert just finished an interesting project at Circle Machine. As some of you know, they've had SMW rotary tables and controllers on two of their Hardinge VMC's for quite awhile. In addition to these, they had custom tilting mechanisms too.

Recently, they got a trunion/rotary table from another Kennemetal division and bought a two axis controller for it from Haas. The new Haas servo controller accepts Fanuc Macro B Dprnt statements (loaded via a second RS-232 port) so we decided to try to use those instead of the old stored program M-Code/Fin system they used before. The main advantage is that they just program the A and B axis in the part program now. A singe M-code/Fin combination still executes the motion and holds the machine until it is complete, but they no longer need to pre-store the A and B values in the Haas memory.

If anyone knows of a customer who may be considering an add on rotary, we are well versed on how to help integrate Dprnt into both the machine and the programming department.

Health Net Cards

OK - They're here!

The Health Net cards are finally here. Sharon has them. If you need it before you can get to the office, she or I will be glad to read you the pertinent information and/or fax it somewhere.

As I mentioned, this should be a pretty easy transition. The HSA stays the same. Health Net has agreed to accept our previously paid 2009 deductibles and each of us who has had medical expenses this year will need to get statements from Blue Shield to verify the amount. (More about that later).

I suggest you take a few minutes to log into the Health Net website and register. I've found that having the online Blue Shield documents has been a big help.

Even though the cards were issued a couple of days ago, coverage began November 1.

Call or write me with any questions. Let me know how you like working with these guys.

Through the magic of Tamiflu and azithromycin, I'm feeling human again. Neither of my two recent doctors seemed to care what I just had, and I was not tested for H1N1. Whatever it was, it was BAD. The fact that I had a regular flu shot leads me to the H1N1 conclusion, but I guess I'll never know.

Warren

Fanuc Servo Tuning, H1N1 Flu

When one has the flu, whether it is seasonal flu 2009 or H1N1 (I went home Thursday with one of these) one has time to catch up on all kinds of reading. If you glance at the document below, you will probably begin to see how much Fanuc has advanced the state of servo performance from the Fanuc 5/6/11 vintage drives we've become accustomed to. 

Have you ever been asked to adjust backlash acceleration? Have you ever considered whether a machine has HRV1, 2 or 3 type servos?

Some of you have been discussing Ball Bar testing with me recently, and this book addresses some of the things that get checked with a Ball Bar test, that couldn't be seen with an indicator and an experienced person. 

We need to keep up, so during these slow times, take some books home.

I hope to be back soon.

Warren

http://www.gexproautomation.com/documents/Controllers_IO/Motion/ac_servo_motor_tuning_b65264en.pdf

State of Uptime, November 2009

I've heard a few rumors recently regarding the state of the company and thought it would be a good time to share some thoughts and facts.

First of all, even though we are in fact low on cash, we are still a healthy corporation. I've taken some steps to remedy that problem by bringing some money from home, which I resisted for quite awhile. One thing which I resisted earlier in the year was an offer by Bank of America to give us a line of credit. Initially they offered one to the corporation only, but upon reading the fine print found out that I was personally liable should the corporation default. It even mentioned that my children and their children would be liable, should the corporation default!!!

When you see shops having auctions, it was probably because they got in bed with the likes of BofA.

Anyway, as a result, we are low on cash. This is, as you can imagine, not caused by my or your incompetence, but because our customers are low on work.

Please rest assured that we plan to stay in business, and are listening to our customers and employees on how to solve the problem of too little work and cash.

In the meantime, I encourage your suggestions and encourage you to have a positive attitude around our customers. One sure way to discourage someone from buying a quarter million dollar rebuild project from us is to moan about the health of the company to them.

Hang in there :)
Warren

Beaming Power using a laser

Greg Rockwood sent me this link regarding the recent space elevator contest at Edwards AFB this week:
http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_13710120


He also observed that maybe we can run servo motors without wiring someday, using this power beaming technology. Hmmm - how about a tilting rotary table riding on a VTL. We could shoot a laser at it periodically to charge the servo/controller's supercap power supply.


Stay tuned.


Warren

Early November Update

Well, here we are into November and I thought I'd mention a couple of things that our guys are doing.

-American Metal Bearing - The machine developed a bad noise in high range early this week as they were checking it out for production. Jeff had fine tuned the zero return and re-checked out the dual feedback late last week after the X ballscrew work was done by Chris and Bill, but the noisy spindle was a surprise to us. Bill went right down and discovered several problems inside the gearbox that were totally unrelated to anything we had done during the recent retrofit work. Parts should be in tomorrow and the machine could be back running with some new bearings and clutch parts early next week.

-GE Duarte - Basem did an excellent job of repairing two VCU's for them in a hurry this week. In addition, he went over and fixed some wiring problems caused by careless installation.

-Health Insurance   - Nothing is ever easy. We've been through a few glitches in getting the plans switched over and hope that the Healthnet will be in place soon, probably with back coverage from November 1. I'll keep you updated.

-NOV (Varco) - Jeff, Jon, Travis, and I were all involved it the first of what we hope are many "Real Time" machine monitoring installations there. The first one we did was a horizontal G&L. It required some custom circuitry by Jon to detect motion in Z, but it is working well now. The system is by Refresh Your Memory, and has an excellent web interface (www.rym.com).

Thanks to all of you who have made sacrifices during these tough times.

Warren


-

Tulip, Memex, and other Canadians

Regarding DNC and Machine Monitoring, our pilot project at NOV (Varco) on machine 127 is up and running. We still have a minor adjustment to make on the Z axis motion sensor, but otherwise, the wireless and mini website monitor is functioning. Hopefully, they'll buy enough for the whole facility (about 35 CNC and a few more manual machines). Please tell me or Travis of any DNC/Machine Monitor prospects.

Dilbert the Engineer - Bad as Willie Nelson's song about being a Cowboy

Couldn't resist posting this. Most of you have probably seen my Dilbert/Ham Radio cartoon on my bulletin board.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYDgncMhXw


Also, thanks to everyone for getting their Health Net applications done so fast. By November 1, we hope to make the switch.

We're actively searching out the next retrofit - this is the first time in years that we have a gap in the schedule. For the record, we WILL still do MDSI retrofits if we are asked (we have quotes out to Accurate, Triumph Actuation, and Triumph Structures for them). We prefer to do ones by Fanuc. I just found out today how much cheaper it is to buy parts retail from GEFanuc than it is to buy a them as part of a retrofit package. The A40/4000HVis motors we used at American Metal Bearing recently cost us $1,688 each. As part of a retrofit package with our current multiplier, it would have cost $3,399. I'm not sure it has always been this bad, but it sure makes me want to look around for used, newer Fanuc CNC's to buy without motors for our retrofits.

Look for work!

Warren

Last trip of the season on Jerry's boat

Well, this is a little late, but here some of us are on Jerry's boat for the last trip of the season. It turned out to be a beautiful evening, even if it was October 9. In addition to Basem, Travis, Gilbert, Milton and Bill shown here, Jeff and Jerry were on the bridge and I took the picture. We sailed over to to Ports of Call and watched cargo get unloaded while we ate sandwiches and pie.

Thanks Jerry!

On a more current note, I'm pleased to announce the birth of George Fahmy last Thursday. There was a little mix up here at the office since at first it seemed that George wasn't ready Thursday. Congratulations to Basem and Erini.

Welcome to a new idea (for Uptime)

Welcome to our blog. I've been meaning to try something like this for quite awhile, but something Friday pushed me into it.

For several months, we've been going through the machines at GE Aviation in Duarte, adding safety switches and locks to the doors. When one showed up via UPS recently, I instructed Ryan to put it in Jeff's office since we had purchased several Euchner Safety Switches for GE and Jeff had been doing the project.

Well, as it turns out, Ron had ordered the switch for GE Aviation in Irvine and the job had accidentally been closed out. I had no idea Ron was working on safety switches. Ron had no idea we had been working on them up in the Duarte plant.

I thought, "we need to communicate better". So, here it is.