We all know what the CNC Milling Machine spindle is used for - to hold the tool. But it is old and boring. Everybody does that.

Here are the 6 interesting and maybe less common ways to utilize machine spindle, increase productivity and solve some problems you never thought you had.

Use your Spindle as a fan to blow chips and coolant off of your work-piece, table and fixturing.

I saw this little gadget at a local IMTS show and it was quite cool. It is installed into a tool holder like a regular cutting tool would be and at the end of the program you can call the it up and run a little table-cleaning program to make your work a lot cleaner!

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From this point on, all holders of valid HSMAdvisor licenses will be eligible to free Life-Time updates and upgrades to their HSMAdvisor product.
Likewise there is not going to be a big functionality jump between the version 1.99 and 2.0 like in some other software products.

This release model is called "rolling release" and it is becoming the new industry norm.
It offers smoother transition and no steep learning curve for existing users. It also helps prevent unavoidable bugs when a large amount of changes is introduced all at once.Read More 

There have been purely electric cars long before the Tesla Model 3.

But Tesla has made it cool. Sort of like how Apple made the iPhone cool, Tesla made not just gas-free, environment-saving cars. It made cool high-performance vehicles that are fun to drive.

And nobody really cares that Chevy Volt has already been available for years for a comparable price. Couple of days since its unveil, the new Model 3 has already outsold the Volt. Not a small feat, considering, they are only going to start delivering in about a year!

But Tesla, like Apple, like Amazon is in many ways a disruptive technology.Read More 

I just have to tell.

I know, I know I should not. But I am working on a very cool feature right now and I am extremely happy and proud with how well it comes together.

Okay. I can tell you that it has a word "Cloud" in it and that I have VERY high hopes for it.....Once fully implemented it will unite all of our Speeds and Feeds products in a huge way.

Keep tuned in. Closed testing is about to start very soon.

If you would like to participate in something groundbreaking and new, shoot me an email!

Only license holders can apply, though. I don't want it to leak too early.

HSMAdvisor the Hook for MasterCAM x9 has had massive changes since the last update

• Completely redone Operation Import/Export functionality
• Added "Insert Operation" command (Add it to MasterCam toolbar through Customize->Toolbars->HSMADVISOR->select item,select toolbar-> Add..)
• Reworked MC Toolbar Icons
• Better tool Recognition
• Added support for ALL milling (2d, 3d, HST) operations. 
• Fixed a huge number of problems including those with coolant, tool numbers and some unsupported operations.

HSMAdvisor hook for MasterCAM currently supports only MC x9.

Due to large amount of work I have done on x9 hook I decided to not port it to support x8. I simply have no time resources to do so. I only have one life you know!

Later versions of MasterCAM will, however, be fully supported.

Canned cycles are used every time we need to drill, ream or tap holes on our CNC machine

Standard Fanuc G-Code language supports more than a dozen canned cycles.

The most common cycles that will cover 99.9% of your g-Code CNC programming work are:

Subsequent holes

You can drill additional holes After your canned cycle has been initiated.
Any line with X Y position will be treated as another hole position.

Each position can have its own Retract value, feed rate and retract height modifier.

G80 - Canned Cycle Cancel Code

After all the holes of the canned cycle have been drilled, it is required to call G80 code in order to cancel the current cycle.

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The First Ever HSMAdvisor Speed and Feed Wizard hook for MasterCAM has been released today for everybody to download for free.

Getting it to this stage has been a titanic effort for me and I am going to put a lot more of it in the coming months: i need to get it to pretty much perfect state before i start forgetting how i did all those things.

Because of this each update i release will extend trial period by 30 days.

This will last for as long as needed to finish the bulk of developing it.

At this moment the following toolpaths are fully recognized:

• Face Mill
• Contour
• Pocket
• Drilling
• Circle Mill
• All 2D HST Toolpaths:
  Dynamic Milling
  Dynamic Area
  Blend Mill
  Peel Mill

The only exception is: Coolant parameters are getting lost somewhere in the process. So please double check it before posting!

Things to be added in the coming days/weeks/months:

1. Fix Coolant
2. Engraving
3. Other Circular Toolpaths such as ThreadMilling etc.
4. Conventional and HST 3D Toolpahs
5. Turning

If you have any suggestions or find any bugs please let me know.

I would like to reassure my current customers that HSMAdvisor Hook is/will be included with your license once this all is set and done.

Please help me with your suggestions/bug reports make this thing even better for all of you!

Here are the latest 2 videos i uploaded to my Youtube chanel

Setting up HSMAdvisor hook:

Calculating cutting parameters for Face Milling, Saving Tool and Cut data and recalling it when needed:

Cheers. And a huge "thank you" to everyone who has been supporting me!

I would like to thank everyone who has helped with the development of our software by investing your time and money, making suggestions, reporting bugs, recommending our software on various professional online message boards and to your colleagues.

Every bit of money I charge for our software goes back to development.

Unlike most other software developers, who often hold back on features to not allow their products to compete with each-other, every useful feature available on mobile FSWizard goes to the desktop-based HSMAdvisor and vise-versa. Even if it ends up hurting overall sales.

I was the first developer who was able to bring a speed and feed calculator as complex as FSWizard to the mobile platform and I have just uploaded another update to FSWizard Mobile app, that makes it even more powerful. Almost as powerful in fact as HSMAdvisor.

Why bother? Why create a competing product that does almost as much, but costs almost 3 times cheaper?

Because I know that most of our mobile users are not only unable to buy a more expensive desktop product, but they are also often younger, less experienced and hold machinist positions without access to desktop computers.

These users deserve every help they need to grow skills and their careers.

And when they grow to be CNC Programmers and get to sit in the office, they would need something more convenient and more powerful.

I hope they then remember that the same guy who develops FSWizard:Mobile also develops an even cooler desktop application called HSMAdvisor, that will certainly help keep their bosses even happier than before!

Once again, thank you, guys. Please have a Safe and Prosperous New Year.

Here is the list of recent changes to FWizard:Mobile v1.38

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New Things:

• New "Indexable Drill" Tool Type
• Some tool will now have Usage Tips in the warning box, IE new Indexable Drill Tool type will have recommendations to use through coolant.
• New Buttons on Tool Geometry pane:
  [Edit As New] button allows to quickly drop current tool and use its data to create a new one
  [Add Tool] Allows to quickly add tool to the library of your choise
• Edit/Add Tool dialog now allows you to choose tool library when you add or edit tool information data into the database

Whats fixed:

• On systems where comma (,) is used to in place of a decimal point, selecting Tap tool type would throw an error.
  This glitch has been fixed in this update.

Looks like Adam Savage from Mythbusters got himself a new cool toy.

Check this out. It is a robotic spider. Made of 3d-printed parts it can move sideways, back up and maybe even shake your hand

It is rather expensive though.

He pre-ordered it from a Kickstarter project. But right now according to the video they go for around 500$.

Do not show it to your kids however. My son almost had me buy it.