Being a CNC Machinist/Programmer is sometimes more than simply creating a program and machining the actual part, often times it is about creating efficient and accurate fixturing.

In this little project:

I had to machine rectangular cut-outs and drill holes through an already-turned steel ring. Then I had to part each ring to 4 equal pieces.

There were about 100 such rings that worked out to 400 pieces in total.

After drilling holes on an indexer I had to machine a fixture to hold my part through 2 remaining set-ups.

First half of the fixture consists of the expanding mandrel:

The work-piece would be mounted on it like so. A hole on the side is used to properly position it:

Every month we are getting a good amount of feedback and suggestions.

Everything is getting prioritized and eventually implemented. Urgent stuff is getting done fast. And other "nice to haves" are getting pushed down according to their usefulness / difficulty (yes, everyone secretly wishes my program could also edit and create HSM g-code :)).

It is amazing, but almost half of HSMAdvisor's features were originally suggested by our loyal users!

The latest update HSMAdvisor 1.213 addresses some of the feedback I have received last couple of months.

So the New features are:

1. Smart Depth and Width of Cut (DOC/WOC) suggestion (user suggested)
2. Compressing of Shared Tool DataBases
3. Display of Stock status on Tool DataBase tables (user suggested)
4. Various little improvements like new Heli-Coil reference, better DOC/WOC calculation better multitasking, etc. (mostly based on user feedback)

Let's go over the most important ones here:

I regularly follow practicalmachinist.com forums.
Especially the cnc machining section of it.

I notice when CNC Speeds and Feeds questions come up people often suggest my HSMAdvisor Machinist calculator.
A referral by a satisfied customer is the best referral in my opinion. Thank you to everyone doing this great favor to me and my prospective users!

Other times users of HSMAdvisor question speeds and feeds it generates and instead of going to me, they ask on forums.
Which is always fine, because extremely often "wrong" results mean something wrong in users expectations or the data he feeds the calculator

In the process of discussion it usually turns out that the calculation results were correct, but because user decided to use a depth of cut or tool length, larger than he should have, HSMAdvisor compensates and gives a very conservative feed rate.

Just like in this forum post over here: Engraving with a 1/32 ball mill machinist wanted

Tool Inventory Advisor is now included into all HSMAdvisor License types!

This feature is absolutely free for HSMAdvisor customers. No special login is required. It is already built in!

Please download the latest update to enjoy the latest update!
Some video tutorials will be published this weekend.

Also in the this update:

• Changed the look of Material and Tool drop-downs
• Added search to Tool list drop-down
• Uploaded new machines to the HSMAdvisor Cloud
• Improved function of Tool Library
  Fixed small bugs
  "Shared Database" flag is now set in the database file itself

Did you know there are three ways you can touch off your tools?

Because of how Machine Offsets add up, there are several ways CNC machinists can set their Tool and Work Offsets.

This is especially true for Tool Length Offsets.

Tool Offsets can be either Positive or Negative.
Depending on your Machine Shop equipment you should use one or the other.

Regardless of how you set your tool length offset, you apply it the same way.
Right after the tool change and after turning on your spindle and moving to your X Y position above the part.
The very first absolute Z movement should be the line where you apply the tool length offset.

Positive Tool Offsets (gage line tool length offsets)

In the case of Positive Tool Offsets, the offset represents the Length of the tool measured as a distance from the Gauge Line of the spindle (typically spindle nose) to the tip of the tool. The longer the tool, the larger your Tool Length offset will be.

This is update is the last one before a pretty big new additional feature being added to HSMAdvisor. So i cleaned up all the little glitches and made a lot of invisible to naked eye improvements.

Without going into detail i can tell you that those features normally cost users of other software products upwards of several hundred dollars, and they will not be without a cost to HSMAdvisor users too.

This feature will be optional and only those who need it will be able to purchase it as an add-on Later this feature will become a separate software product with HSMAdvisor add-on being just a small part of it.

Development of HSMAdvisor will continue as normal.

 What is new and improved in this update:

• Improved function of Tool Tables. Removed flickering. Faster Filtering and scrolling.
• App Icon changed
• Modified over 45 Degree Ramping Feedrates for milling.
• Fixed Cloud Machine Upload

Before we run any G-Code program, we need to tell the machine where our part zero is.
A Part Zero is simply a bunch of numbers that offset the axis to give the machine a new coordinate point to work from.

Work Offsets is one of the most basic pieces of knowledge any machinist must-have.

Let us account for all the basic coordinate systems and definitions, available in a generic CNC machine

• Machine Home and (Absolute) Machine Coordinates
• Work Offset Coordinates
• Tool Length Offsets

Machine Home and Machine Coordinates: G53

Machine Coordinates (or Absolute Coordinates) is the absolute and constant representation of the machine axis position.
These coordinates never change between Machine Restarts and must remain such. In fact, there is often no way for an operator to adjust the Absolute Machine Axis Home position.

Machine Home is simply that magical place where all Machine Coordinates should become Zero.

To Home the Machine is to start a machine operation, that will move all Axis to their soft limit position where X, Y, and Z-axis reading will be set to zero.

Homing must be done every time you restart your machine. Without it machine does not know where is the position of its table or spindle.

When homed your machine coordinates will read X=0 Y=0 and Z=0 and it is going to look like this:

The point where Machine X and Y intersect is called Table Home Position and the one where the Machine Z-axis starts from is called Spindle Home.

Now, there is no agreement between machine tool manufacturers on where the machine home should be.

Proper machining depth and width of cut are just as important as proper Speeds and Feeds. 

This is not only importanttant for professional machinists, who are machining on the edge of their tooling and setup capability, but also for hobbyists, who often face limits from the machine rigidity side of the equation.

HSMAdvisor Speed and Feed calculator has a unique tool used for figuring the best engagement values for each particular cut you are making.

It is called Performance Slider. And it adjusts expected load on the tool and machine depending on your preferred machining mode.

Check out this video I made that explains Performance Slider' functionality:

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.