Where does Oil Come From, Where does it go [Infograph]

Infograph credit

Popularity: 1%

Auto Air Gun Activation

Here is another cool trick: If your machine has an auto air gun option installed, you don’t necessarily have to activate it with an M code. For manual activation, simply press the shift key followed by the coolant key, but make sure SHIFT actually appears on the screen before pressing coolant, unless you need to wash up, because that’s what you will be doing if you accidentally activate the coolant pump!

HaasTec Open House Draws More Than 2,100 Visitors

The recent recent HaasTec Open House held by Haas Automation, Inc. was a complete success, drawing more than 2,100 attendees to the company headquarters and manufacturing facility in Oxnard, California. The 3-day event drew visitors not only from across the U.S. and Canada, but also from around the world, with attendees from India, China, Israel, Latin America, and several European countries.

Held March 10 – 12, HaasTec included machine demos, extensive tours of Haas Automation’s 1-million-square-foot facility, a catered lunch, and 25 vendor booths with representatives from major CAD/CAM, tooling, and workholding manufacturers. As an added bonus, Stewart-Haas Racing had two racecars on display at the event (shown below), including the #14 Chevrolet that Tony Stewart drove to a 2nd-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Of the 20 machines on display and cutting metal at HaasTec, four were brand-new for 2011, and two – the large-capacity ST-40 and ST-40L turning centers – debuted at the show. Also on hand were the rest of the Haas new generation ST and DS turning centers – including dual-spindle and Y-axis models – as well as the DT-1 Drill/Tap Center, a wide array of new generation Haas VMCs, and a pair of Haas horizontals.

In addition to the CNC machines, HaasTec also featured a selection of Haas rotary products on display, including the brand-new HRT160SS high-speed rotary table. The HRT160SS is the fastest rotary table Haas has built to date, providing a maximum speed of 570° per second – more than four times the speed of the standard HRT160. Its compact size and high speed make it the perfect complement for the DT-1 Drill/Tap Center, and other high-speed Haas machines.

HaasTec received rave reviews from visitors and vendors alike. “We had such a great time!” enthused Andy Weinberg, of the UCSB School of Engineering. “We were blown away by your factory! It was like going to Disneyland, but better! Our shop is actively trying to raise money to buy a Haas mill and lathe for our student shop, and now, I’m really motivated.”

Peter Marton of Surfware, Inc., had this to say: “It was a tremendously successful event in terms of having very focused and targeted visitors coming by to see how we could provide complimentary solutions to their Haas machines, or new customers looking for ways to be more competitive. We received as many qualified leads [at HaasTec] as we would have received from a tradeshow. The tours, the food, the demos, the organization, and the hospitality were outstanding.”

HaasTec 2011 was the first time in nearly a decade that Haas Automation – America’s leading machine tool builder – has hosted such an expansive event. And by all accounts, it was an overwhelming success.

For more information about Haas Automation and Haas products, call 800-331-6746, or visit www.HaasCNC.com.

An American manufacturing approach to fending off FOREIGN COMPETITION

The Alpha Group based in Statesville NC, a division of R.P. Machine Inc, has both products and services that are very unique and competitive in the industries and markets they serve. The Alpha Workholding business unit (AWH) markets, manufactures and sells magnetic Workholding systems and lift devices that are marketed and sold globally. The Alpha [...]

The World’s Best Movie Cameras Machined on Haas Tools

Munich firm P+S Technik uses high-speed Haas CNC vertical machining centers to make some of the most advanced movie cameras and cinematography accessories in the world. Alfred Piffl founded the digital image and converter company in 1990 and has seen the industry through its constant evolutions, including the recent barrage of 3D films.  Many of the high end camera rigs found on today’s sets were machined on one of P+Technik’s five 5-axis Haas machines.

The Oscar winning company makes specialist cameras, super high-speed cameras and complex rigs for 3D camera set-ups used by famous Hollywood directors such as James Cameron (Avatar) and Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire).

Search for Part of a Code in a Program

Did you know that you can search for a G or M code (or part of a code) in a program by entering an alphanumeric value and pressing the up or down arrow?

“Down” will search from the current point in the program toward the end, while up will search back to the beginning. For example, if you want to find the next coolant command in a program, you can enter M8 and push the down arrow. To find the next M code, no matter if it is an M8 or another M code, just press M and the down arrow, and the cursor will jump to the next M.

CNC Machines Help Engineering Firm Beat Economic Downturn

Story and photos by Matt Bailey

My hotel is about 30 kilometres from the centre of Bangkok, in a buzzing suburb called Bang Na, where the streets are lined with open-fronted shops selling everything from nuts and bolts to fresh fruit and vegetables. Scooters and mopeds – sometimes with a family of three aboard – weave between the colourful trucks and busses, and stray dogs sleep on the corners of the sidewalks. Although news reports claim the country is experiencing the lowest daytime temperatures in 10 years, it’s a gloriously warm and sunny morning in the Kingdom of Thailand.

Pakco Axis Co., Ltd.

I’m in the country to visit several manufacturing companies that use Haas machine tools, starting with Pakco Axis Co., Ltd., a privately owned precision engineering firm founded and run by Pichest Tuntisawee: a restless mind and inveterate entrepreneur. Mr. Tuntisawee was one of Thailand’s first Haas users, and is a keen advocate of the California-built CNC machine tool. It started 8 years ago, when he went looking for a second-hand milling machine, but was surprised and delighted to discover that his budget would stretch to a brand-new Haas TM-1 Toolroom Mill. Since then, he’s bought another nine Haas machines, and gives his reasons for choosing Haas without too much prompting.

“Firstly, Haas machines are very competitively priced,” he says. “They’re also very reliable and easy to use. We’ve bought at least one Haas every year of the recent past. Each time we’ve needed a bigger machine – or a different kind of machine, such as a lathe – we’ve found a Haas that fits the bill.”

Economics and Machining in Thailand

I was pleasantly surprised that the day I was at Pakco all 10 of the company’s Haas machines were busy cutting metal. During our factory walk-about, Mr. Tuntisawee told me that many of the firms in the neighbourhood, also manufacturers, are working 3-day weeks and laying-off staff. By contrast, the employees of Pakco are currently working 6-day weeks to meet demand. Mr. Tuntisawee sympathises with his fellow business owners, especially since many of them have only recently recovered from the last economic upset.

There was a financial crisis in Southeast Asia in the late 1990s that hit the regional economies hard, but mostly remained a local problem. The International Monetary Fund stepped in, and within a couple of years, the worst was over. It seems particularly unjust that Thailand and its neighbors should be suffering again so soon after the last recession.

Pakco Ltd. has two specialisations, the first of which is rotational moulding of large plastic products. Enormous 20,000-litre water tanks, chassis parts for an electric golf cart, and the occasional surfboard are stacked or scattered around the factory wherever there’s space.

Rotational Molding

Wikipedia describes the rotational molding process as “a high-temperature, low-pressure plastic forming process that uses heat and biaxial rotation (i.e., rotation on two axes) to produce hollow, one-piece parts.” It sounds a lot less impressive than it is in reality. Around the spacious Pakco workshops, enormous, counter-balanced, hydraulically controlled arms that resemble fairground rides (or astronaut training devices) provide the biaxial motion – the kind of thing that simultaneously spins and rolls the passenger to induce vertigo and disorientation. The “passenger,” in this case, is the mold itself. The molten material is poured in and the whole assembly, heated by gas torches, rotates until the plastic has reached and coated every internal surface. The mould is then cooled to solidify the plastic, opened and the part removed.

As well as selling moulded products, Pakco also builds the biaxial machines to sell to other manufacturers, mostly in Southeast Asia. Many of the component parts and moulds for these, often enormous, machines are made on the Haas CNC machines.

“The second Haas machine came a year after the first,” says Mr. Tuntisawee. “We now have ten machines that are busy full-time, including a VF-6 on which we made the moulds for the golf trolley chassis and roof. We make a pattern on the machine, and then cast the aluminium. Then we come back to the machine to finish the casting. We make the chassis in sections, because otherwise it would be too big for the machine’s table.”

Roto-moulding parts such as the chassis and roof is quicker and less labour-intensive than building them in glass fibre. The concept works so well that Mr. Tuntisawee has plans to design and manufacture a small, two seat hovercraft chassis using the same processes and techniques.

Growth in Manufacturing Specialty

The company’s second area of expertise is evident around the factory’s bench-tops. From relatively humble beginnings making blades for food and liquid agitators, Pakco now manufactures sophisticated propellers and turbine blades for, amongst other things, Thai naval vessels, specialist submarines, and hydropower generation units.

The Haas machines are used to produce various kinds of propellers; such as agitator impellers; marine propellers, and other kinds of turbine blades. Pakco is able to supply one-off parts or batch quantities, according to customer requirements.

“Typically, machining tolerances are in the region of ±0.01 mm, which is well within the capability of a machine such as the VF-6,” explains Mr. Tuntisawee. “We maximise spindle speeds wherever possible, depending on the cutter type, and we also maximise feedrates and depths of cut, where surface finish requirements and workpiece material permit.” Common materials machined include steel alloys, stainless steel, aluminium, bronze, cast iron, and plastic – a list that highlights the versatility of the company’s Haas machines.

Mr. Tuntisawee has developed his own software that simplifies the procedure for designing and machining a new propeller. The operator simply enters the critical diameters, the pitch ratio, the chord-length ratio, and the rake angle, and the software graphically renders the propeller and generates the thousands of X, Y, and Z coordinates needed to program the milling machine.

This kind of inventiveness is typical of Pakco’s managing director. When most companies need a machine, a tool, or a piece of equipment, a rudimentary make-or-buy analysis is enough to justify spending money. Not Mr. Tuntisawee. Apart from when he invests in a Haas machine, his first instinct it to use the tools he has to make the machines he needs to make the machines he sells, which probably has a lot to do with why Pakco survived the Asian financial crisis, and why it’s well placed to survive the latest economic challenge and emerge stronger than ever.

Haas Automation Records Best Quarter Since 2008, Doubles Production

Haas Automation, Inc. (Oxnard, CA) reports its 4th-quarter 2010 revenues were up 118% over 1st-quarter 2010, and that the company more than doubled production in 2010 to meet growing demand for its products.

“We closed out 2010 with our best quarter since 2008,” said Haas General Manager Bob Murray, “both for orders and for revenue. We saw a steady increase in demand last year, with each month better than the previous month. December was our best month since June 2008, with orders up 150% and revenue up 96%, year over year. We see that trend continuing in 2011.

“We also more than doubled our production during 2010,” Murray added, “and we’ll continue ramping up to meet the growing demand, as shops worldwide invest in Haas equipment in response to the improving economy.”

International Markets Growing

Sixty percent of the Haas machines sold in 2010 went to international markets, noted Murray. Haas sales in Russia increased more than 120 percent, and sales in India grew by a remarkable 107 percent. In China, Haas sales expanded by 68 percent, and sales in Latin America increased by 65 percent.

“It was good year,” continued Mr. Murray. “We saw growth in all regions, especially internationally. We’ll continue investing in our growing international markets to ensure that all Haas customers receive the high-quality products and world-class service they deserve.”

All Haas products are built in the company’s 1-million-square-foot manufacturing facility in Southern California, and distributed worldwide through a global network of Haas Factory Outlets (HFOs) that provide the industry’s best sales, service and support.

For more information about Haas Automation and Haas products, call 800-331-6746, or visit www.HaasCNC.com.

Customer Wins trip to Haas Automation HQ for HaasTec Open House

Ron Justice of Bellefontaine, Ohio, is the lucky winner of an all-expenses-paid trip to Southern California to attend Haas Automation’s HaasTec Open House in March. Ron was selected at random from attendees who registered online for HaasTec by February 1. For his prompt registration, Ron and a guest will receive round-trip airfare to California, and be provided with a rental car, hotel accommodations, and an extra day’s stay to play after visiting HaasTec.

Justice is the operations manager for Pleasant Precision Inc. (PPI), in Kenton, Ohio, which designs, builds, and runs plastic injection molds for the automotive, medical, construction, and consumer markets. Justice has been with PPI for nearly 30 years, during which he’s gone from “designing plastic injection molds using pencil, paper, and an electric eraser,” to using the latest CAD/CAM systems and CNC machine tools. “It has been fascinating to watch the evolution of CNC over the last 29 years,” Justice says, “especially the milling machines.”

At HaasTec, Justice will be able to see the latest Haas CNC technology up close and in great detail. There will be 20 machines cutting metal, including the new generation ST and DS turning centers, and guided factory tours – both above and on the production floor – to see how Haas machines are built.

In addition to his “day job,” Justice also operates a small business of his own, using a Haas OM-2 Office Mill to manufacture aftermarket parts for CarveWright Woodworking Systems®. The OM-2 “has the same control and capabilities of most bigger machines, just in a smaller footprint,” Justice explains. “For the size of the parts that I am machining, I couldn’t be happier. It has given me the ability to run a small business out of my garage, and has been everything I had hoped for.”

Haas Automation, Inc., is America’s leading machine tool builder, and HaasTec is a once-in-a-decade opportunity to visit the company’s headquarters and manufacturing facility. The event is scheduled for March 10 through 12, 2011, from 10 am to 4 pm daily. Registration is free, and available online at the Haas Open House Sign-Up.

HaasTec 2011: Your once-in-a-decade chance at an inside look!

We don’t do it often, but when we do, we do it big!  Attend HaasTec on March 10-12 in Oxnard, California and enjoy rare insider access to all of the latest Haas CNC technology – up close and in great detail:

• New technologies, including the DT-1 Drill/Tap Center , ST-10 CNC Lathe , and DS-30SSY Dual-Spindle Turning Center

• Vendor exhibits covering tooling, probing, software and more

• 20 machine demos

• Guided factory tours

• Special catered lunch

Download and Print event info here: HaasTec 2011

Next Page »