10/30/24-11/4/24

10/31/24 Tool Holding

Day two was the same process, videos for prep in the morning and in the afternoon we went down to clock in and be with our mentors. I volunteered to be the loner so I was with Kyle. When I got there he was in the middle of an op so I watched and saw how he switched the program, flipped the part over and positioned it for touch off. Kyle likes to pre-place his part before the pin stop comes down to locate the part, he places it away from the pin stop then once it comes down he slides the part over so it touches and moves the flutes to the correct position. We tapped the part with a hammer after tightening two vices which hold the part in place to make sure it was seated all the way down. Then we began our program and it used tool 3 a 3/8 standard end mill which is a tool that is already in the machine, the op also called for tool 6 a 1.285 #30 standard drill. To bring a tool forward to check it you need to hit reset, MDI which is manual data insert where everything goes, then hit T and insert your tool number, in this case we used 3, then hit ATC to tell the machine to bring that tool forward. 

Then we went over some abbreviations such as OOH which is Out of Holder and that means how much your tool sticks out of the holder, LOC which is length of cut, and DIA is Diameter. 

Looking at our tool list we realized we had a couple tools to build so we took tool 4 an end mill and brought it over to the shrink fit machine and put the heater to setting 3 which is 6-8mm, brought it down and heated our tool, after we took our tool out with pilers and put the 6-8mm cooler on the holder, while it was cooling we measured the tool length to see what OOH we needed it to be, we marked it with sharpie and made sure our holder which is a 1/2in Heimer was cooled off, reheated it and put our tool back in and held it in place with our pliers while the holder shrunk back down to size and gripped our tool, after about a minute of turning and waiting it was settled so we put the cooler back on and got started on our next tool. The tool was a # 11 .191 stub drill, 2 flute, with a collet holder, er32 with a 2in extension, OOH is 1in. We picked out the correct extension and collet and used our pliers again to make sure not to burn ourselves, we did a 1/4 turn with little force to see when it was bonded together and we put the cooler on when it was together. 

After putting it together we took it back to our station and measured the 2in extension to be 2.053, we measured the tool OOH which is supposed to be 1in at 1.3300 which is good because you want to be over not under so you don't damage the tool, our tool was a bit short so it was better for us to be over by as much as we were to be sure we didn't damage our tool. We then went over the face mill that was used to shave the top of the part to smooth over any scratches that may have been on it. 

11/1/24 Machine/Tool Offsets

Day 3 I learned tool offsets and I was once again paired with Brittany. First I learned how to offset with an edge finder, an edge finder is a tool used to locate a part with precision, you load it into the tool holder chuck, tap it so it offsets towards the part, move into hand jog mode so you can crank the dial in .010 thou increments, once I saw it straighten out I kept going until it kicks again then once I had that number I subtracted 1/2 diameter of the edge finder. I used T11 which is a drill to do my offsets off X, first I had -10.0802 then I subtracted .1 and got -10.1802. The first time was going from the right of the part then I did it from the left and got -32.3891 + .1 = -32.2891 same as my mentor, the reason we added is because if we subtracted we would've ended up going away from the part and our left side offset would be off. For my left side offset I was off by .0011.

Then we did tool offsets, our center of rotation is 6in above the table and T11 was 5.5138 when we checked what it was last time. To do my tool offset I put a 2x4x6 block in to get it 6in above the table, then I moved the tool close to it and had my paper at the ready, I put edge over edge since we used a drill and put my paper under the tool, I dropped my increments from .1 thou to .0011 thou to get it as close as I can without breaking the tool and so it moved very slowly, once my paper stopped being able to move I moved the tool up one click of the dial and it scratched my paper signifying that part is done, I then needed to -.3 thou to compensate for the thickness of my paper and got -9.3220 and I was about .0010 thou off of what it was.

11/4/24 Maintenance

Day 4 I learned daily, monthly, and, weekly machine maintenance. Weekly you're supposed to run the spindle warm up program (if machine is off for 2-3 days), check the airlines for water/coolant, check your coolant concentration to make sure its a good oil to water ratio, check your tools for damage, rust or chips, use a rust inhibitor on the tools, check your air regulator pressure gauge and make sure the gauge is between 80-100, remove your coolant pump and remove chips from inside of it so there's no build up. You should also clean the inside of your spindle you do that by taking a rag over your finger, putting it in the spindle and twisting it, you can also use the spindle head brush with a rag over it to be more precise. 

Monthly you're supposed to remove every tool in the machine, remove chips from them, and use grease on them to be sure they're in proper working order, you should also look for ware on the tools and be sure they're sharp. Check your machine doors to insure they slide easily, clear all chips on the rails inside the machine, check all your sensors and wires to be sure they're in proper working order, reinstall your tools and be sure the holder has a good grip on them, on some machines the tools load from the side so you'll want to check the straightness of that if it applies, be sure to spray a rust preventative on your machine table, if you have a newer machine remove the air filter to clean it, if your machine is older use a towel to wipe it off, and always be sure to drudge your coolant tank because it removes impurities (suspended solids and sludge) present in the oil / emulsion and which have deposited on the bottom. 

Daily you need to use a broom, (not a shovel or anything hard inside the machine because you can end up pushing chips up or knocking things around and if you're cleaning the walls off use coolant), after every operation and sweep chips into the chip conveyor in your machine and turn on the conveyer so your machine doesn't get backed up with chips, every few days you should check your coolant concentration when I did it I used the refractometer and put a glove on since you need to put an even coat of coolant on the refractometer, then you shut the lid, bring it up to your eye in the light and see where its at, my coolant level was at a 2.7% oil, which means its low on oil usually you want between 3-4 which would be 5% oil but that's aluminum specific. Remove chips from the coolant flow, keep your space around you clean and organized so you can find things when you need them. To help spray your chips off the machine you can use the coolant hose but first you need to turn the spindle coolant off by turning the knob on the top of the spindle backwards and turn the coolant hose on and spraying the excess coolant off the table and walls. 

I ended up doing some maintenance on a machine that wasn't being used, I scrubbed the stop of the machine with a rag and some cleaning solution and cleaned all the chips off the tool caracal and the surface around it. I then moved on to cleaning the coolant tank with the rest of the AMLA students. We worked together to drain the coolant, clean the coolant tank, scrape the bottom of the coolant tank to get the gunk off the bottom, we cleaned the screens and parts around the tank, shopvaced the tank to make sure all the chips are out of the bottom, after we had everything cleaned off we put everything back together and put new coolant in and we were done.