I once heard a colleague say, “Safety, ease of use, efficiency: pick two.” It can be difficult to strike a balance among these three productivity-affecting qualities. Anything done to improve one can potentially degrade the others. Efforts to improve efficiency, for example, might involve dangerous shortcuts or overly complicated tasks.

Companies seeking to improve their CNC machine utilization usually do so for several reasons.

For these reasons, always be on the lookout for ways to increase machine and personnel utilization. But of course, this must be done in a safe manner. Efficiency-related improvements must not violate safety priorities:

Mistakes are commonly the single-largest cause of unsafe conditions and are a symptom of undertrained operators. These mistakes come in many forms, from a misloaded workpiece or cutting tool to running the wrong program to making an incorrect sizing adjustment. The product of these mistakes is often a machine crash.

Machine crashes result in scrap workpieces, broken cutting tools, damaged machines and even injured operators. So, eliminating crash-causing mistakes will make for a safer working environment. And considering the amount of time required to get a machine up and running again after a crash, eliminating crash-causing mistakes might be the best way to improve CNC machine utilization.

There are two ways to reduce operator mistakes:

In either case, you will improve shop safety as operators grow in their competence and begin to eliminate mistakes.

Ideally, CNC machines should be attended 100% of the time, including during setups and production runs. Surface Milling Inserts However, machines often sit idle while waiting for someone to return and do something. While CNC operators may have appropriate reasons for leaving their machines from time to time, often the cause of non-attendance is related to preparation and organization. Here are a few suggestions:

From a safety standpoint, well-organized operators are safe operators. An organized work area will keep operators focused on the task at hand.

Operators should not have to overly exert themselves mentally or physically in order to accomplish their tasks. If someone is struggling or if they are taking a long time to complete a task, find a way to help them.

For example, say machine tool operators are taking excessive time during sizing adjustments and sometimes making mistakes when determining the deviation amount and polarity. TCGT Insert In this case, provide them with the high limit, low limit and target values for every surface being sized. Also, find a way to let them specify the surface type (external or internal), measured value and target value using a tablet or programmable calculator. Have the device respond with the deviation amount and polarity.

People who have the help and resources needed to complete their assigned tasks will be safer than people who must figure things out on their own. Additionally, they will do so in the manner and timeframe you intend.

The Carbide Inserts Website: https://www.estoolcarbide.com/pro_cat/threading-inserts/index.html

The ECP-3/4L family offered by Iscar Metals, Inc. incorporates a serrated cutting edge that features flat peaks, which are said to provide good surface finishes.

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Recommended for machining austenitic and martensitic stainless steel at up to 2×D depth of cut, the SolidShred is available with three and four 38-degree helix flutes in grade Coated Inserts IC900. All end mills in this series feature long shanks with reduced neck fast feed milling inserts diameters, which according to the company, enable machining along high shoulders at high feeds. Because of force distribution and the splitting characteristic, the end mills are suitable for use on low-power machines—CAT40, BT40 and ISO40.

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These tools can also be used when machining alloy steels.

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The Carbide Inserts Website: https://www.estoolcarbide.com/

Arch Cutting Tools Corp. (Arch), a manufacturer of high-performance custom tooling, is acquiring Custom Carbide Cutter Inc. (CCCI), a provider of cutting tools to manufacturers and APKT Insert distributors located in Cincinnati. 

"I am proud to announce the addition of Custom Carbide Cutter to the Arch Cutting Tools team,” says Jeff Cederstrom, Arch Cutting Tools divisional president. "Custom Carbide's experience in specialty carbide micro tools and high-performance burs sets them apart in the industry and compliments the Arch offering.”

Arch is based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and serves the medical, aerospace, defense, automotive, energy, agriculture and general industrial markets. As a mid-sized, full service cutting tool manufacturer, Arch has facilities across the United States, and the company says it is dedicated to engineering high-performance standard and custom tooling.

“We are excited to offer these additional TNMG Insert domestic manufacturing capabilities to the growing Arch customer base, especially the micro tool application expertise, as this is a rapidly expanding segment of the industry. Steve and Dena Long have assembled a talented team, and we look forward to building on Custom Carbide’s longstanding customer relationships with additional products and services,” Cederstrom adds.

CCCI was established in 1983 to provide cutting tools for local companies in the Cincinnati area but has since grown to service customers around the world. It specializes in serving the automotive and aerospace industries along with shipyards and medical facilities.

“The acquisition by Arch Cutting Tools will help us keep pace with this ever-changing industry,” says Steve Long, CCCI president. “It will give us access to additional support and guidance for our highly-skilled employees and help us continue developing our manufacturing processes.”

The Carbide Inserts Website: https://www.estoolcarbide.com/product/use-for-surface-milling-and-shoulder-milling-cutters-blmp0603r-blmp0904r-excellent-performance-indexable-milling-inserts/

Motion control is at the heart of any computer numerical control (CNC) machine. Precise motion could be required for directing a cutting tool to shear material from a metal workpiece, for guiding a laser to pierce sheet metal, for driving an electrified wire to vaporize hardened steel or for countless other applications that require articulated motion. Precise motion control is also at the heart of 3D printing.

3D printers have been around for a long time. With that said, I am surprised by how many people know just a little about them. Frankly speaking, I counted myself in this category until recently, when I purchased one of the many kitted hobby-grade fused filament fabrication (FFF) machines. It has a 0.4-mm nozzle and prints using 1.75-mm plastic filament. It is chirping away next to my desk as I write.

My observations relate best to CNC people who have limited exposure to 3D printing technologies and want to know more. If you fit this category, look online and you will find hobbyist 3D printers priced within just about anyone’s budget. Some kits, like my delta-type, sell for less than $200 and the related software can be acquired for free. I think any CNC person would truly enjoy building and owning one, if only to learn how they work and what they can do.

3D printers are relative newcomers to manufacturing and not traditionally thought of as CNC machines. But like traditional CNCs, most do run from G-code programs. These programs are created with the help of a single-purpose CAM system, though in 3D-printing terms, it is called a slicing program.

For desktop FFF printers, the slicer divides the model into thin layers of 0.05 to 0.3 mm thick, based on required surface quality. The created G-code program first moves the heated nozzle to its initial height above the bed tungsten carbide inserts and extrudes a thin bead of material for any part of the model that appears in the first layer. It then moves the nozzle up and does the same for the next layer. It repeats this process for the entire model. For a 100-mm-tall model using a 0.2-mm layer thickness, the slicer will create G code that drives motion for 500 layers. As with any complex-shape metalcutting CNC program, this can make for a very large G-code text file.

The axes layout for 3D printers is identical to a CNC vertical machining center when viewed from the front: X is left/right, Y is fore/aft and Z is up/down.

Metalcutting CNC machines, like mills and lathes, utilize multiple cutting tools for machining a workpiece. The kinds of machining operations performed are numerous and varied, and include hole machining, milling, turning and threading. This CCGT Insert demands a great deal from the CAM system used to create the G-code program, and from the programmer who uses it. This programmer must understand the basic machining practices required to develop a workable machining order and to be able to select acceptable workholding methods, cutting tools and cutting conditions.

By comparison, most 3D printers are single-purpose machines. While they may have the ability to work with multiple filament materials and colors, the slicing software that creates the G code does most of the work.

I am probably oversimplifying, but once a 3D model is created, and if it is oriented in an appropriate manner, the slicing software will create the G-code program based on some relatively simple printing parameters. Machining practice decisions are replaced largely by 3D modeling decisions. If you can design a model/workpiece in a 3D CAD system, you can probably print it on a 3D printer.

Though there are exceptions, program execution times for metalcutting CNC applications tend to be relatively short, often well under an hour, and many CNC cycles are completed in just minutes or seconds. Conversely, nothing happens quickly on a 3D printer. Even small models can take more than an hour to print, and larger models take much longer. It is not uncommon for a 3D print to take the better part of a day.

Accuracies realized by metalcutting CNC machines are often measured in microns or ten-thousandths of an inch. In my experience, it seems the best tolerances that can be consistently held by FFF 3D printers are in the 100-micron (0.004-inch) range, even when compensating for material shrinkage during cool-down.

Just as metalcutting CNC machines can machine a variety of materials, FFF 3D printers can create models from a variety of plastic filaments. Even hobbyist-grade 3D printers can work with PLA, ABS and nylon, among several others. Of course, 3D printing technology is not limited to plastic. Direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) machines, for example, can “print” a variety of metallic materials, such as steel, stainless steel, aluminum, Inconel and titanium.

Program transfer for 3D printers is commonly done with SD cards or flash drives. Unlike most metalcutting CNC machines that require programs to reside in the CNC memory before they can be executed, most 3D printers run the G-code program directly from the external memory device. This eliminates the ability to modify the G-code program at the printer, but this is largely a moot point since G-code programs for 3D printers are so easily created by the slicing program. Required changes will be made with the slicer, and a new G-code program is brought to the 3D printer.

CNC people should find it very easy to adapt because they can apply a great deal of what they already know.

The Carbide Inserts Website: https://www.cuttinginsert.com/product/vbet-insert/

CNC Software’s Mastercam X9 software introduces tungsten carbide inserts improvements to its Dynamic Motion, Multiaxis, and Design and System features. To create the most efficient cutting motion possible, Dynamic tool paths calculate not only the area where metal will be removed; they also take into account the changing condition of the material through various stages of machining.

Dynamic Xform enables users to switch between gnomon manipulation and geometry manipulation mode at any time. Solid Disassemble is a new Model Prep function that takes an assembly and lays each body out in a single pane. The associativity between solids and toolpaths has been improved in this version. When bodies are edited, only the toolpaths directly affected by the change in the solid body are marked as dirty.

The new Milling inserts Multiaxis Link ensures reposition moves between two- through five-axis operations are safe and collision-free. Multiaxis Link is an operation that takes a list of toolpath operations and a safety zone shape as input. Mastercam X9 introduces improved processing logic for advanced multi-axis toolpaths. Select Multiaxis toolpaths now process in the Multi-Threading Manager, streamlining users’ two- through five-axis workflow.

Other Mastercam X9 features include Preview Toolpaths support for select Mill operations to see results before closing the toolpath parameters dialog; Surface High Speed Hybrid support for dedicated flat processing; improved efficiency of the 3D HST Rest Roughing Linking; and two new tool types in Mill Tooling as well as changes to two existing tools.

The Carbide Inserts Website: https://www.cuttinginsert.com/product/tpkt-insert/