We should all look this good at 92

Some of you might remember Ben Frank, formerly of Bullard. I have had the pleasure of working with Ben occasionally for most of my 40+ years in the machine tool business. Today was one of those days! He is alive and well AND still working. We worked on a machine at S&S Precision today. He drove himself down from Ventura County.

Cryogenic Coolant

http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/the-400-difference

I don't really mean for this Blog to become a forum for new MAG ideas, but this one is too interesting to pass up. Many years ago, I fixed a Monarch 10"EE lathe at USC that was being used for this kind of research. MAG now has it for sale.

I especially like the part where the machine remains dry to walk on and how tool life is ten times better in some circumstances.

Volumetric Compensation in FIVE axes!

Just when you thought nothing ever happens in our industry, we realize that:
1) MAG (Cincinnati) is still alive and well.
2) They are actively researching new techniques.
3) There is still a lot of money changing hands in our industry.

Check this out:
http://www.engineeringexchange.com/group/machine_tool/forum/topics/new-system-simultaneously

I was distressed to see that Fanuc was not a part of this consortium. That might not bode well for our recent Fanuc upgrade quote at Triumph Structures. Maybe this is why they prefer Siemens.

Stuxnet

I'm sure that most of you have heard of the Stuxnet Computer Virus by now. Here is an article that goes into much more detail than I've seen before. This is pretty ominous for us because the target of this virus was actually 9000 Siemens Inverters! We don't see this type of connection or communication on our machine tools, but we might some day. Last year, Jeff and I were asked to work on a large (1000 foot long) continuous vulcanization machine in Santa Maria. Its PLC controlled the speeds of 17 inverters along the line and seems like the kind of thing that could be susceptible to this kind of attack.

Something to think about.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/

Update from Andy

Most of you know that Andy is in Bahrain for a couple of weeks visiting his Mom. He just called me to say Hi and told me they all celebrated Thanksgiving together. He was able to find a turkey right there in Bahrain and bought the fixings with him. He gives his regards.

Gears

Couldn't resist this one. For those who think all gears are round:

http://www.flixxy.com/gears.htm

Maybe the guys who designed the Boko varidrive/gearbox at ATK were students of this guy.

Yaskawa Sigma V drives are NICE!

I finally got around to posting a couple of videos and a few more pictures of the Harris Mfg. job that Basem and I recently did in Fresno. The machine was an Amada COMA that had been previously retrofitted with a Punch Wizard PC based control. As you can see from the still pics, this machine had Fanuc's old 10L servo motors on it which are liquid cooled (coolant inside the armature which circulates to a heat exchanger on the shaft end). I took the chance of using a smaller motor than this, mainly because the breaker for the whole drive was only 20 Amps. The motor we put on was the largest one Yaskawa makes with the 10L flange and 35MM shaft.

They worked great.

This video is both axes at 1000 IPM:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Ko62MCzJM&feature=mfu_in_order&playnext=1&videos=vahVA9BClPg

This one is of a heavy part (60 lbs?) at about 700 IPM. The motor is loafing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu6p3PEzhm8&feature=mfu_in_order&playnext=1&videos=vZhOJHZUVjE

Here's the old motor, all taped up from years of trouble:

We mounted the new drives where to old ones were:

Basem mounts the new motor, same mount, same shaft:

The new drives are VERY easy to integrate. Auto tuning is amazing and actually works.

Keep looking for opportunities for these drives.