- In this episode of the UMC 500 Series, we're making chips.
And we're gonna show you our unique approach
to using three of our products,
to make one of our components.
Let's get started.
(upbeat music)
So in this episode of the UMC 500 Series,
we are making this product.
This is our hand valve.
It's just a simple air valve.
The story behind this is we wanted to bring
all of our manufacturing,
not just in-house,
but back from overseas.
The original hand valves we were buying
came from all over the world,
and we had quality issues over time.
And there just wasn't a great domestic source
for an inexpensive hand valve.
So we started producing them ourselves.
Now, the thing about this
is there's lots of machining on all sides.
Obviously, there is the top profile.
There is a left,
a right,
a bottom side,
as well as our sticker pocket
that we pocket out so we can place it
so it's perfectly centered.
So five out of the six sides on this work piece
get machined.
This is perfect for five axis machining.
But it's also expensive.
So the plus side to five axis machining
is you get to hit all sides.
The downside is you're typically only working on one part
at a time.
But let me give you a closer look
and I'll show you how we get the best of both worlds
using three of our products.
Let's get in closer.
Welcome to the inside of the machine.
Okay, so from the top down,
this is our RotoVice product,
and this is a slightly shorter in-house version
that we made just for the fun of it.
We had a little extra material,
but it works perfectly in this.
Our normal off-the-shelf RotoVice would also work.
The only thing that's different is the body extends
and gives a little bit more travel.
It's perfect for three inch cube work pieces.
So what we've done here is we've,
we're holding four of our hand valves per station.
And as you can see we can access the bottom,
the left side porting,
the right side porting,
and the pocket where the sticker goes.
After these four come off,
they go to an adjacent machine
where we only machine off the top,
which would be this surface here,
and bring it to size.
And the part is finished.
Now we've taken the RotoVice and we've mounted it
to our second product, which is our Pro Pallet.
This is an eight by 12 size.
And we've made a really cool design in Fusion 360.
We've taken the outer profile, the rectangular eight by 12,
and we have lofted it to a circle to match the diameter
of the mounting flange of the RotoVice.
And it gives this really cool transition
from rectangle to circle.
Which if you asked me, I think it looks pretty sick.
And finally, our pallets lock down to our Pro Pallet base.
Now our Pro Pallet and our Mini Pallet systems
use springs to keep everything locked,
but they used compressed air, not vacuumed,
compressed air to compress the springs
and unlock the system
which draws in the six ball-locks
per locking mechanism.
So these Pro Pallet systems work great
in a three axis vertical,
because you can run an airline to one of the air valves
that sits on the table.
But in a five-axis environment,
it's a little bit different
because you have the B and the C axis
that are turning and twisting.
And really, there's not a lot of real estate
to put one of these hand valves on.
Now, the way that we get around that
is to use a quick disconnect.
Let me grab that.
Okay, this is known as a Japanese style
quick disconnect fitting.
So the nice thing about this is it's one handed operation.
Simply push it on and it locks.
And when you're done,
pull on this collar and it disconnects.
So when it does connect,
it provides compressed air.
You can take pallets on and off.
And when you're done,
just pull it out.
I like this because it goes through the door.
Now, if we had some type of fancy solenoid system
where the G-code would turn it on off, that's fine.
But at some point there's going to be a manual override
outside of the machine.
You do not want to run these
with air pressure applied to it.
So, if this is plugged in and the operator forgets,
they will not be able to close the door
and press cycle start.
That's why it's a backup safety thing.
Off means locked, press cycle start,
and you're ready to go.
Let me give you a close-up shot of this.
So as you can see,
we run the airline out the side of the Pro Pallet base
into this adapter that we made,
which takes the push-to-connect fitting,
and on one side and has the quick disconnect male fitting
on the other.
It protrudes not even an inch,
which is never a clearance issue.
Now, as I mentioned earlier,
you have your female fitting with the collar.
Simple one handed operation.
That just provided compressed air to the base.
And to disconnect it,
all done.
Okay, so we've disconnected the airline,
the pallet system is locked.
The doors are closed.
The program is loaded.
And this is the moment where we hit cycle start,
and all the planning,
all the dreaming,
all the engineering, and design, and programming,
comes to this point.
Where when we hit cycle start,
we see the payoff of five axis machining.
Here we go.
Okay, so quick disclaimer here.
Machining with coolant and filming it really stinks.
So we figure we'll opt to show you some follow-up
coolant free footage.
So bear with us.
So tool one,
two and a half inch Kennametal face mill,
pretty straightforward.
Just faces the top of all four parts.
It does a rough pass and then a finish pass,
removing two thousandths of material.
(upbeat music)
Next tool up is a three eighths,
three flute end mill.
What it's doing here,
is it's just doing a pre-machine
of the upper portion of the part.
Taking out as much material as possible, you'll see why.
Because we have this fork area in here
and we just go through a really quick adaptive
just to clear that out.
Sure we can slot it,
but we're have so much efficiency going on here
with holding four parts at a time, multiple faces.
I like to take lighter cuts
and higher process reliability whenever I can.
(upbeat music)
Okay, next tool.
Two inch long, three flute, zirconium coated end mill.
We are going full depth.
We're taking a 10% radial step over,
and of course that full two inch length.
It's actually, I think it's about inch nine 50
length of cut here.
And we're just going around the whole part.
(upbeat music)
Okay, now the next tool, exact same dimensions.
Half inch diameter with a two inch length of cut.
We left three thousandths of material
around the perimeter of the part.
And we have this held in a hydraulic tool holder from YG-1.
Really great brand.
Affordably priced.
Been really happy with these hydraulic tool holders.
Almost zero run-out,
especially when you're running longer tools like this.
Run-out is so important.
(upbeat music)
One of my favorite drills.
This is a two flute coolant through drill.
Maybe I'll show you the original footage
of when we drilled this.
Through coolant drills are amazing.
You plunge so fast.
I think this was plunging at 120 inches a minute,
which is actually quite conservative
for a drill of this size.
It's a letter R 339.339 inches,
plunging in and out.
We could probably do honestly about double that,
but again, process reliability is most important to us.
The nice thing about this
is the first time you're gonna see this drilling
on the sides, it's on the front side.
But then it goes back and it's drilling
the air inlet hole on the right side of the part,
or furthest from us.
Now this would only be made possible
with a RotaVice and a fourth
or in this case five axis solution.
(upbeat music)
Next tool up is a simple drill.
This is just a little drill that's going in
and breaking through into the main valve section.
(upbeat music)
And of course doing the exact same thing
on the other single hole on the backside of it.
(upbeat music)
Next tool, this is an eight inch 27 NPT pipe tap.
I'm gonna show you the real footage here,
'cause we obviously didn't run it dry.
So it's going to get a little messy here,
but tin coating on this works beautifully in aluminum.
(upbeat music)
Next tool, another big one.
This is a 14 and a half millimeter drill,
through coolant as well.
Single straight plunge.
Again, for its size,
about 150 inches a minute,
very conservative on the feed rates.
But of course that through spindle coolant
works beautifully,
blasts in,
blasts out those chips.
Does an amazing job.
We're actually running a reaming cycle,
feeding in and out.
That gives us a really nice wall finish
whenever you run that reaming cycle
with these through coolant carbide drills.
(upbeat music)
Next tool, coming back with a three eighths finish end mill.
What we're doing,
we're opening up this hole right here
and we are going to finish it with a thread mill.
Now the thread mill requires pretty close tolerance.
You don't want to take away
too little,
or too much material and risk breaking it.
(upbeat music)
Next tool, quarter-inch chamfer.
We are chamfering holes.
We are chamfering any surface
that needs a chamfer or an edge break.
We don't do any de-burring outside of the machine.
That would be over-processing
or it would be wasted motion.
A couple of lean principles there.
We want to do as much work to the part as possible,
so that when these come out of the machine,
they are off to the next operation
or off to the anodizers.
Bottom line they're finished in the machine
with little human interaction.
(upbeat music)
Same concept here to chamfer the top side.
After all, the previous top side work has been done.
And one of the last tools is a quarter inch diameter,
20 pitch thread mill.
If you're scared of thread milling,
don't.
These are such simple tools to program
with any modern cam system.
We use Fusion 360,
and as you can see,
it just makes easy work.
We actually take it,
take the cut in two passes.
One is obviously a rough.
We leave two thousandths of material,
and come back with the finished pass.
Leaves a really beautiful thread.
(upbeat music)
Okay, last tool here.
We're gonna see the advantage of making this part
on a five axis machine.
So far, we could have run everything on a fourth axis,
but here we are taking advantage
of having an extra face available to the cutter.
What we're doing here is we're just putting a shallow pocket
in the face of the valve,
so that when we come back,
we can place our sticker with our logo on it perfectly.
It's a nice little detail
that just looks really good.
We used to originally put our stickers on the face of it,
but adhesives and chips over time,
they started collecting around the edges.
We don't have that problem.
As you can see,
we use the same type of sticker on the face
of our Pro Pallet System down at the bottom.
It's in a pocket.
Does two things.
Of course it makes it look good.
Plus it gives our assembly personnel
the exact placement of where to put it.
No crooked stickers.
It just leaves just a much higher quality of part.
(upbeat music)
And details, details, details we're coming in.
And that pocket is only about 30,000 steep,
but we're still gonna go in
and chamfer that edge of the pocket.
Taking away any burrs,
any sharp edges,
making this look like a beautiful, premium product
that it is.
(upbeat music)
And there you have it.
So if you want to learn more about our products,
including the RotoVice and Pro Pallet System behind me.
Look for the links below in the description.
Now, if you want to become a better machinist,
check out our Fixture Friday playlist.
If you're into robotics and automation,
we have a robotics series going on
that's just about to wrap up as well.
And of course, consider subscribing if we've earned it.
So until next time,
go innovate your production.
(upbeat music)