MHI Bridge X Axis Inductosyn drooping A.3gpp

I was working on a Mitsubishi Bridge at Frontier in Gardena last week. After seeing extraordinary positioning problems (.1" or more errors in various positions on the 150" travel), we discovered that the tape scale was very loose. For those of you who are unfamiliar with tape scales made by Farrand / Inductosyn or Mitsubishi, they need to be stretched. It is hard to tell how much they need stretching ( I had to bring our laser to stretch this one), but this one is TOO LOOSE.

After proper tensioning using the laser, this axis had only point in 150" that was .0008" out of position. Most points were between 0 and .0004" out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evz57rDIbJI

Heidenhain CNC

Travis asked me to ask everyone which customers have Heidenhain controls. We have been designated as reps for their probes, and integrating them into Heidenhain controls is very easy. Therefore, he wants to approach them first. The ones that come to my mind are ATK, Mafi Trench and Paragon Precision (in Santa Clarita). If you can think of any more, please add them here or let Travis know.

We are also going to be selling Blum LMT products (Probes, Tool Setters, Laser Tool Setters) and I'll have more to say about that later.

Progress continues to be made in the area of machine monitoring using the "Refresh Your Memory" system. NOV (Varco) has just given us a P.O. to upgrade their one machine pilot project to include Feedrate Override monitoring. Upon completion of this, they will probably move forward with several more machines. Sonic in Torrance and Ontario is expanding their system. We've been given all of RYM's Westec leads for this area and are considered to be their exclusive dealer for both monitoring and DNC in Southern California.

Sharon will be off until Monday.

Warren

Who says mechanical innovation is dead

Sometimes I'm tempted to say that we'll never get back some of the old craftsmanship we had during the last industrial age. Then I run across things like this and realize that there are still gifted people out there who keep innovating. I know that harmonic and planetary reducers aren't new, but these guys seem to have found lots of new applications.

http://video.designworldonline.com/video/f932b40f4d7c4d52bd1e2b0b7d951932

Warren

Westec 2010

Most of you know that Westec was last week. You all also know that, for the first time in our company's history, we didn't ask everyone to take off one afternoon and go see it.
There were two reasons:
1) We're just coming out of the worst year in Uptime history and
2) The show just wasn't that good. In fact, the show was so bad that they aren't even having it next year and will be every other year for the foreseeable future.

That is not to say there weren't some useful displays. Travis and Jeff spent time in the "Refresh Your Memory" booth. Their machine monitoring system has great potential. We are now their exclusive reps for Southern California and all show leads for our area were given to us. Please continue to be on the lookout for prospective customers for this exciting new technology. Newer Fanuc controls with FOCAS and Haas controls are especially easy to integrate.

Now for some good news: We had not only a profitable month in March, but also a profitable first quarter. Thanks for all of your efforts. As I mentioned in a recent voice mail, we are still struggling to get paid for what we've done, but things are looking up.

Warren

Roc-Aire Correction

The other day, I mentioned that the Roc-Aire problem led to damage in the VCU. That turned out not to be the case so far. It turns out I was confused (as usual?) with all of the swapping that went on. However, as of today, they really haven't run the same parts they had trouble with earlier.

We'll see.

Warren

False Alarms from Fancu VCU's

We've had a rash of nasty problems on various Fanuc controls lately that defy repair. The alarm we see revolves around intermittent over-current alarms on various types of Fanuc red cap servos. Two of these have been on Fanuc OTB controls (Absolute Tecnologies and Weldmac), one on a Fanuc 18MA control (Roc-Aire) , and I believe one was on a 16 control.

In each case we started out replacing or swapping the VCU, then put in outside cabling, then changing out or removing the motors for testing, only to find out that it was the CNC all along feeding bogus commands to the VCU/Motor.

The one at Roc-Aire last week was just the latest one. In this case, the small two axis snap in board caused all of the above actions, and actually damaged the VCU eventually.

Be on the lookout for this type of scenario. They seem to begin as highly intermittent alarms that can be easily reset.

No one is happy after this is over.

RefreshYourMemory Update

Last Friday, we completed a monitoring installation of four machines at Sonic Industries in Torrance. This was a pilot project for what should become a much larger monitoring project at their Torrance and Ontario facilities. As we do more and more of these, we are beginning to see other uses for remote monitoring. In Sonic's case, they are going to use the reports to schedule Preventive Maintenance inspections. One of their large customers in France is pushing this.

My point of all of this is to be on the lookout for:
1) Refresh Your Memory remote monitoring opportunities (NOV (Varco) is coming on board already).
2) RYM DNC systems (and RS-232 to Ethernet upgrades).
3) Combined RYM Monitoring and DNC together.

Check out http://www.rym.com/cncmonitoring/. This is their demo monitoring site.

We will be in their booth at Westec. Travis is becoming very proficient in this product line.

Warren