CNC mill and tractor parts

Been a little talk here about CNC mills. Here are pics of a couple parts I made recently for my tractor on my CNC.

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Several years ago, I made a steel replacement for the broken iron casting that makes the transition from the exhaust manifold to the muffler. Don't have a picture of that though.
 
What are you using to write the programming for them? I am a
recently retired tool maker. I spent the last two years I worked
learning how to write programs with software called Mastercam. I
did some pretty impressive 3D milling with a VMC. The programs
were very large. The Oliver emblem, at least in the picture,
looks like 3D milling.
 
That is gorgeous work. Don't know how much time and materials you have in it, but with a CNC, I would think you could make some money making emblems and such, and advertising in the tractor mags. Maybe not Oliver 500, kind of a limited market! :>)
 
(quoted from post at 04:09:22 03/28/18) What are you using to write the programming for them? I am a
recently retired tool maker. I spent the last two years I worked
learning how to write programs with software called Mastercam. I
did some pretty impressive 3D milling with a VMC. The programs
were very large. The Oliver emblem, at least in the picture,
looks like 3D milling.

I use a program from Siemens called NX. It is an integrated design and programming software.

Both those parts have 3D programming with the emblem obviously having lots more than the wing nuts.

The emblem is cut in two different operations, front and back. It took about 150,000 lines of code to cut the surfaces.
 
....with a CNC, I would think you could make some money making emblems and such, and advertising in the tractor mags. Maybe not Oliver 500, kind of a limited market! :>)

For money, the best guys are ones with fancy boats. They seem to have a penchant for bright shiny curvy metal parts and are willing to part with big cash to get them.

rrlund did buy a pair of the emblems for his 500s.
 
Can you post pictures on your setup?

I am working on mine, and love seeing how others did it.

Here is a picture of the work area in mine. The block in the vise is soon to be a custom alternator bracket for a guy that is adding a third alternator to his boat. The ruler sitting on top is just to give a size reference. It is 12 inches.

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It is a production CNC. Runs on single phase though so nice for the home shop. Often times used ones are cheaper than buying a Bridgeport clone manual mill.
 
David, that is a metric clock. There are only 100 degrees in a metric circle. Bet you didn't know that, ha.
 
That must be a tool changer

Yep, 10 tools selectable from within the program.

It is a great help in getting more done. On a part like the Oliver hood badge there are 5 different size tools for the back side where the engraving is done. Having the tools automatically change lets it run unattended for the hour or so that program runs. Otherwise, I'd be having to change tools every 5 to 20 minutes until the program was done.
 
My last 3D milling job. The part is 15-1/2" in diameter and 4"
deep. The program was all very short straight lines, some as
short as .001. There was over a million lines of code. It took
12 hours to run. They had to buy a memory upgrade for the
machine to be able to load the program. The truly amazing thing
to me was after I told Mastercam what tools to use and what
patterns to run, which took a lot of time and learning for me,
it only took Mastercam 3 minutes to write the code.
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My last 3D milling job.......

Nice work!

I have not used MasterCam for over 20 years now so don't know anything about what it like now. One thing I have learned with my current software is that there are several different methods to apply toolpaths to the model. All create the same quality of part but with widely different program sizes. Some methods create code in the tiny line segments like you had and others use the G2 and G3 arc commands. IME that ends up with a program anywhere from half to one tenth the size of using tiny line movements.
 
I will second that! CNCzone is an excellent wealth of information. There are different sub forums for many different machine manufacturers and CAD/CAM software packages.
 
To cut down the length of the program, could you have programmed 1 spoke and the area next to it before the next spoke and make that code a subroutine? Then use G68 and run the subroutine 6 times and rotate it 60 degrees each time.

That may not have yielded a good enough finish where each section would blend together, but just an idea I had to cut down on program length.
 
The machine had the ability to rotate a pattern. I used it several times when I hand wrote code. I didn?t have enough time before I retired to learn how to really use Mastercam. If you could do that I never learned how.
 
I was always surprised that Mastercam never used
G2 or 3. It might be because the package for the
machine I was programming was for an outdated
machine running a Siemens control instead of a
Fanuc. Circular commands for that machine were
like G2.01 or G2.02 instead of G2. It was the
strangest control I ever programmed. I did grow to
like it a lot though.
 
(quoted from post at 19:39:26 03/30/18) I was always surprised that Mastercam never used
G2 or 3. It might be because the package for the
machine I was programming was for an outdated
machine running a Siemens control instead of a
Fanuc. Circular commands for that machine were
like G2.01 or G2.02 instead of G2. It was the
strangest control I ever programmed. I did grow to
like it a lot though.

I'm pretty sure MasterCam has a function where you can select if you want to use arcs if applicable. I imagine the post would have to support it too.

I've spent very little time on Siemens controls. Not popular in the NW. The few that I've seen usually come with comments about poor service and support. The higher level ones are very powerful and capable. Programming is kind of weird, but I think that is just something you end up getting used to.

G68 or coordinate rotation is handy for many things. Unfortunately it is often an option that was not purchased, or simply not available on some controls.
 

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