Fixtures fixtures fixtures!

[JohnWilson]

What are you planning on milling? Bars, abutments? Chrome?

Have a you a demand for any of this now? You work only for labs right?

Having a beautiful and very capable tool is wonderful, having the business to make it make money for you is another.

Milling metal is expensive and as you know the tools aint cheap. I am totally envious of what you have coming.

After all my recent head aches with bars from Nobel (time frames and customs) right now it sure would be amazing to be able to do them in house, a pipe dream for me but a dream/goal non the less.

 

[DMC]

Tooling is cheap when you get outside the Dental World.

I'm sure this will make a wee-bit of profit, and I hope for more.

I am going to use a small fleet of tools to gradually nibble the metal and not abuse any one tool.

B&D only uses a couple and beats the snot out of them, and charges an arm and leg. We will use over Seven sizes for standard coping.

We are doing gross removal (Roughing) with extra large tool and 5HP spindle. (3.7kw I think)

It obviously won't reach many areas, so we continue Roughing with slightly smaller.

The Haas does sub 2-sec tool changes and has very fast capabilities of feedrates.

It will all be over with in a blink of an eye. The modern CAM and mill will work together well.

We do NP and Ti substructures to fill the mill, and gradually enter the abutment and bar arena.

I plan on making a Haas package with everything needed to copy me if it works. Haas has no plans to make a "Dental" mill.

They simply do not do turn-key packages and do not deal with CAM or fixtures what so ever. Never have, never will (they tell me now...in future?)

 

[DMC]

 

[Drizzt]

Man , this looks awesome !!! When is the mill arriving ? If I ever fly to the states , I will come to your lab for sure !!!!!!!!

 

[DMC]

I am having Two companys make me this fixture.

One is regular Steel that will have Black Oxide coating, kinda like a Gun.
The other is going to be Tool-Steel that I may have coated with truck-bed lining to absorb some vibrations and add a protective layer, and to have a squishy layer that is touching the metal disk?

 

[Dentaleng]

Dear Scott,
Great work. Keep the fixture length as long as possible i.e the distance of your puck to the base of the trunion. I am suggesting from my experience on this machine.
It will be a big task for you to build postprocessor for this machine especially the 5 axis one.

 

[DMC]

That is why I hire CAM Guru from Italy to fly to my lab for a week and do it for me. (Programmer from CIMSystem)

We will have success or die trying. LOL

I want to have more accuracy by getting as close to trunion as possible, and trying to avoid collision.

The farther away we get, the more accuracy we loose on that rotary axis. I want workpiece to be close to centerline of trunion as possible. I am considering the collision zone and hope I calculated correctly for up to 30 degree of tool angle into 25mm piece of material going to edge of disk.

We'll see?......

Fixture is jacked up from rotary table by the vice, which I have not shown you a pic of yet.
Also, there will be adaptor plate under that to raise even more.

You'll see soon.

 

[DMC]

This will be on top of aluminum spacer/adaptor plate.

What do you think so far? Will that dog hunt?

 

[DMC]

It works AWESOME!!

Hold Metal Disk PERFECTLY.

So far so good.

 

[Dentaleng]

The bolt on the vice would be a problem. Rotate the disc holding fixture by 90 deg. Hope ur so called CAM guru has experience on real CNC controllers and especially on the HAAS 5x.

 

[DMC]

whatever.

 

[DMC]

See the gripers move in and out to "squeeze" different size disks? (8mm Disk in the Pic to test my smallest piece)

How could I possible rotate the jaws 90 degrees? I do not think your mind can handle this thread. LOL

The whole thing wouldn't work! The base is a $3500 German made, self-centering 5-axis fixture, which I have used as intended. The grippers I designed. The whole system I designed, and has never before been done in a Dental Mill.

It is already going to be mounted on a rotating table.

My fixture will self-center any size disk from 7mm to 45mm in Z-thickness....with or without a 10mm side step cut. I think it is bada5s and needs nothing.

 

[DMC]

See this TR-110? If the Fixture were too long, then you would be hitting the metal table that this is going to be bolted onto when the trunion rotates below horizontal (flat). This would limit any 5-axis movements to minimal tilting angles. More vibrations also with longer cantilevered disk holder?

 

[DMC]

CIMSystem Srl

 

[DMC]

Show me a pic of your Haas Office Mill and 4th/5th axis rotary.

Thanks!

Scott

 

[Dentaleng]

Scott, your fixture designs and the efforts are exceptional. But you don't respect people. You yourself has asked for suggestions here, so I am giving you those. You should appreciate some one is spending time in writing to you. Take or leave the advice, but respect those.
Once you start your milling, you will remember the Bolt.

 

[DMC]

OK.

You say nut is a problem and leave no room for doubt? I have considered harmonics and clearance and I think I have improved on existing designs, and ended up basically a new breed of fixtures. I fix the nut....Uno Momento Senior......







Here is photo to show the actualy nut....It can be trimmed if necessary. All things I modify to suit my needs. This is no exception. PLENTY of room to withstand a little trimming IF necessary. But I do not plan on grinding on it yet. I do not think it is needed. The external hex cover is acting like a swarf shield with Seal on it's end. It has plenty of material to be trimmed back, as well as the internal hex itself. Torq is 23Nm max on the nut. (around 20ft./lbs)

 

[Dentaleng]

Your work is great, your ideas are great, your efforts are great and you yourself is great. It does not matter what credentials I have and how much experience I have. I have never questioned your fixture design nor I have questioned your CAM Guru. I asked because HAAS is a different machine than a lot of other mills. Anyways..
Regarding the bolt and the 90deg and the fixture length. I suggested all these for only one reason: Collission of the spindle head with the trunion dia. You could avoid that increasing the tool height but then your speeds will come down. Why rotate the fixture base?? The rectangular base that you have and the bolt on top of that would reduce the clearence of the spindle head when you are milling deep into the block. Rotating that base wrt the milling axis would give you the clearence.
Take the advice or leave it.

 

[DMC]

draw picture and show how I would be able to use the twin-moving parts of fixture to hold various Z-thickness disks then sideways, if I rotated the grips on the vise 90 degrees. It won't happen.

I understand the shape of grip would change, but you would then have no way to hold various thickness of disks.

You'll see once you start to design it your way....Then you have another problem I'd like to hear your answer to.

Haas uses regular ISO Standard G-code. The Controler is easy to understand, especially since it is from my country and the native language is English and it is the largest supplier of CNC mils on my Continent for a reason, and there are Hundreds of places to teach, as well as I get Life-time training and support from Haas once you buy a mill. The Haas trainer is coming to my business along with CAM software eng.

I appriciate your warnings. Maybe I have jumped the gun on my own confidence. You have me second guessing myself now.


Below is my Modified Nut and cut-back protective external hex that once engulfed the internal hex that drives the mechnism.

Black Oxide layer added to the Steel grips today as well.

 

[DMC]