New things: None.

Well not really.

First of all alot of small bugs has been fixed.

Second of all i added a neat picture to Drilling operation.

It now shows what each drill specific field means

Also. Unfortunately all current license key holder will have to get new license keys.

If you currently have a license key, please e-mail me your new Computer-ID
And i will send you a new license key.

NOTE:

If you are installing over previous version of HSMAdvisor, you are encouraged to perform complete uninstall of the old version.

Othervise what happens is old settings file is not compatible with the new one.

This will cause Default Tool Type, Tool material and Coating presets to get lost and you end up with a funny looking FSWizard page.

Correcting this is extremely easy:

You need to select some tool type (IE: End Mill), select some Tool Material (IE. HSS) and finally select some Coating (IE. NONE)

This will fix the problem.

Attached below is a screenshot of what it looks like when settings mismatch happens, not a pretty sight i agree, but there is no need to panic.

(Note to self: add version check for every file)

Drilling Settings version mismatch

Needed to do alot of side drilling/milling/tapping on our moulds lately.

So I quickly designed and whipped up this custom indexing fixture that allows me to mount almost anything to it.

Face plate has several tooling dowel holes on front side to locate work piece.
On the back of face plate there are 36 3/8 dia reamed holes spaced 10 Degree apart.

Housing has a big 5.0"Dia pocket in the front into which the face plate's hub fits in with 0.001" clearance
Housing also has corresponding 3/8dia reamed holes spaced apart 9 degrees. This allows me to index the face plate with 1 degree increment.

Design time:2 hours, Machining time: 2 hours.

Pictures are here:

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Using Peck Cycle is often needed when drilling deep holes.
When using proper feed and speed no peck is required at depths of up to 3xDia for regular or 5xDia for High-Performance Parabolic drills.
At depths up to 10x, up to 5 pecks are required for regular  drills and up to 3 for Parabolic.
Anything over 10x Dia requires constant pecking of 0.5-1x Dia for regular drills and 1.5-2 Dia for Parabolic.

Since for programming you need a peck amount. Here are the numbers:

Of course our HSMAdvisor Speed and Feed Calculator suggests not only the Speeds and Feeds but also the proper peck depth for various drill types and depths of the hole.
It in fact was the first machinist calculator to do so. This feature was much later borrowed by our competition.

And here is a pretty image showing Peck VS Hole Depth for regular twist drill:

This not only means that peck amount should be different for different styles of drills and depths of holes.
But also that peck distance should be different for different stages of drilling the same hole.
Ideally we should start the hole with large pecks, that continually reduce as the hole gets deeper and deeper.

Let's find out how we can apply this knowledge when programming our toolpaths.
This is format for normal Pecking:

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Here are some Okuma Captain 1200 program samples for work with live tooling.
Samples are quite big so READ full article

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As part of FS Wizard's development. 2 drills were tested today on T6061 Aluminum.

0.312 Dia and 0.390 Dia Dormer A002 Drill Jobber Drill with TiN coated tip.

Helix:30Deg

Point:Split, 118Deg.

Hole depth for both was 3.0"".

Peck equaled 1xDia

Speeds and Feeds for 0.312 Dia drill were

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Tool:0.281 dia 0 helix TIN coated carbide drill

A need arouse to drill and tap lots of blind 1/4-20 holes in 3/4" thick hardox 45-50RC hard plate.

So if you ever need to do this use:

1) DRILL
Tap hole: >0.202" or bigger.  5/8 deep.
Drill used: Tialn coated carbide drill.
S=1418 RPM
F=2.6 IPM
NO Peck, No Coolant

2)TAP
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Lately we've been doing alot of anvils out of 3/8 or 1/2" Hardox steel (Rc 45-50)
Aside from having to machine profiles and pockets we also have to drill some mounting holes.

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Here is a list of Okuma G and M codes i got from the manual

Note Some codes may not be supported by your machine, all information is given as is and i dont give a ... if you break something.

Information given here is correct to the best of my knowlege

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If you are finishing a pocket with wall corners' radius close to the radius of a cutter. The tool tends to chatter, especially with longer tools and harder materials.

To avoid this you can do one of the following:

• When programming. After roughing the pocket and before finishing. Create a simple drill cycle with finishing tool to remove extra material from the corner. This way when finisher goes to the tight corner, the chatter will virtually disappear.
• Do the same with a drillbit. Before Roughing.