Five axis machining paired with our rotovise
has brought an incredible amount of productivity gains into our company.
Now, I was about to buy another Haas UMC 500, until I got a phone call
from a customer with a question that prompted me
to save over $120,000
on bringing in more five axis equipment into our shop.
In this video, I'm going to show you exactly how I did it.
So behind me
is a Haas VF 4ss and on the table is TRT 210.
Now the TRT 210 is a multi axis rotary unit.
We've made it these two together so that we get a five axis machine
at the cost of just the TRT itself.
Now of course, the catch is that I already owned the v4 SS
but I bought the TRT 210 at a significant add on discount
when I purchased another Haas mill that's actually a VM 3
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So we get a TRT 210 at a discount.
We don't install it on the machine that it was ordered with.
We install in this existing it's actually a 2017
model year VF 4ss and then just add additional drives.
Now once you have this setup, you think, Oh, this is really easy.
You just bolt that on and go, It's actually not that easy.
And in this video, we're going to get a little closer look.
I'm going to show you exactly the hurdles that we had to overcome
so you don't make the same mistake.
Now, in some of my previous videos, I've covered how pairing up a rotovise
with a four axis indicator will allow you to get a 12 x productivity boost.
Remember, it's access to three phases, times four parts 12 x,
but pairing it up with a five axis solution like this is a 16
x productivity boost because now you're hitting
four phases of the part times
four parts, 16x productivity boost.
That's why our rotovises are just so darn popular.
We can barely keep them in stock.
I really feel like this setup is the as I've said in other videos,
it's the bar fed lathe version of productivity
where you just set it up and it runs and almost finished parts comes out
where you're almost printing money without going to jail.
So it's true that the TRT 210 and also smaller
little brother, the TRT 160 are bolt-on additions.
There's a bolt back here that bolts into the center t slot as well is two outboard
kind of outrigger things here and there is you can't really see it,
but there's another bolt in there.
So four points of location for this unit.
Now, what's different about this in a UMC
500 is the direction of these axes.
If you have something spinning on the x axis that is known as the A,
if something spins on the Y axis, that's a B,
and if something spins on the Z axis, that's a C.
Now, like I said earlier, this is a true axis in the UMC, 500.
It's a B and a C for some reason
this is an A, which is correct, but this is known as the B axis.
That's one of the hurdles that we have to keep in mind
when we're programing this in our CAD cam system.
Fusion 360 I've mentioned that before.
We just have to make sure we're using the right post processor setup
so that we are not outputting B, which is normally like this where outputting A
and we're not outputting C, which this is actually the C axis,
what is known as a B axis in the control.
So that's the first hurdle.
The next thing is bolting this all the way off
the edge and travel makes me a little bit nervous.
In fact, we bolted it all the way to the right hand
side of the table to maximize the left hand side of the table.
And when this table is jogged back into the back right corner,
things get really tight.
So what we did there is we actually limited
the travel, all of this unit.
So it it's it's short about an inch and a half,
both in the X and the Y because I don't want to pinch cables.
I don't want anything caught back there.
When it's doing our warm up program, we usually cycle the table from front
left to back, right. We changed all that stuff.
That's user travel limits.
That's easily done in the Haas control.
So what we've done here is we've aligned it, we've indicated it,
and the tricky part about this is it's
a different alignment than the UMC 500.
Now, let me show you what we do
to find the center of rotation on this.
The first thing we do is we're going to run an indicator
across the top of the platter to find the true a zero.
Once we have that, we rotate the platter positive 90 and -90,
and at each position we touch off and find the center of that platter position,
go to the opposite side, find the center of that platter position, do the math.
The halfway point that is the center of rotation for Y.
Now, once we know that distance,
that means when we rotate it back down again, half of that distance
is the Z center of rotation when we probe the top of it.
And that distance, I think in this case, it was about 611 thousandths.
And then to find the “X” center of rotation, that's really easy.
We just probed the center of the bore and that center
will give us the X center of rotation.
Then what we do after that is we standardize that location.
We saved it to G 154 P 19
that was a high number unused offset
and we then programed everything off
of that center of rotation in camp.
Now what's different about this compared to
the UMC 500 is the UMC 500.
Also, you want to find the center of rotation, but it's done
through software known as M, R, Z, P
machine, rotary, zero point in which you have
a basically a probe
or some some type of device sphere mounted to the table.
And the machine goes through a preprogramed set
of calibration cycles to find the center of location.
Now, remember that call I got from a customer?
Customer called and said, Hey, I've been watching your videos.
I own a Rotovise, I want to buy another rotovise,
but I'm thinking of mating it to a Haas TRT
210 Do you know anything about this?
Can you give me any feedback? Can you help me with this process?
I had literally never thought about these TRT units and I said, Well,
let me call you back now as luck or almost dumb luck would have it,
our bolt pattern for the flange
was identical to the bolt pattern
in the faceplate of the default TRT 210 platter.
Now you can order these
with the zero point system, you can order them with the t slot table.
They just build up the add complexity going with the standard,
no additional cost.
That's all in hyphens, no additional costs platter.
Just made it a really simple setup.
The bore is two inches.
When the customer would purchase our rotovise
you just specify a two inch guide pin at checkout.
It mates down six bolts all the way around
and it is like a bolt and go solution.
So are there any gotchas in this whole setup?
Well, I would say yes.
From a mechanical standpoint,
you do not want to have your rotovise directly under the spindle.
If you're machining in this vertical configuration and then do a tool change.
The solution to this is in the Haas control.
You can specify a known tool change location.
So wherever it needs to change the tool, you can tell it, hey,
I always want to be at X, maybe like ten
so that it moves the table this way.
So it's out of the way.
Also, you can command it to always
change tools at a 90.
So this road device lays flat, it doesn't protrude as much,
and then you don't need to move the table at all.
Now, on the financial side of it, if you have a three axis machine,
each three axis drive requires its own servo amplifier.
When you add an additional axis to run, maybe a fourth axis like a
like a HRT, 160 210, that type of thing.
The servo amp is maybe, I don't know, 1500
dollars upfront price on the Haas website if you want to look at that.
But if you add a second or a five axis servo amp, that's
where the price is not an additional or incremental 1500 dollars.
It is thousands and thousands of dollars.
I'm not sure why this is the case.
I can tell you that if you're adding servos, it does add complexity.
It also adds more processing power, which is already built into the control.
And I totally understand and support the business model
that's a developed five axis technology.
There is a cost to that.
So the physical cost of adding a fifth drive is not there.
It's the development cost that gives you the customer
the ability to add five axis capabilities to your machine
while paying for the engineering, research and development
that allows you to do that.
So I've heard some people complain that that fifth axis drive
is a lot more expensive, but you're not necessarily paying for the drive itself.
You're paying for every step in front of it
that allows you to maximize your production with five axis machining.
So with that being said, let's take a look
at some cool machine footage.
So if anything, pique your interest in this video.
I'll add links in the video description below for the Rotovise and the TRT 210.
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