- Hello and welcome to
another Haas Tip of the Day. Now, as machinists, it's our job to turn raw stock into finished parts that match a blueprint. Now, just as important as our NC program, is our part setup and that's what we're gonna do right now. We're gonna give you some tips on how to find the edge
of your part quickly. and more importantly,
accurately and with confidence. Okay, so when I want to
find the edge of a part, I usually just probe it, but we've got around 200,000
machines out in the field and not everyone has a probe yet. So, right now, in today's tip, we're gonna just cover the manual methods of finding an edge. Things like using an edge finder or different styles of indicators. Now, even if ya' do have a probe, these are skillsets that every
CNC machinist really needs. So, let's go and start
with the edge finder. I'm gonna put this tool in the spindle (machine working) and jog that edge finder
just below my surface. And now from the control, I'm gonna enter 7-5-0 FWD. Now, 750 RPMs is the maximum allowable RPMs with the door open. Now, it's also a great RPM to run our edge finder at. If your doors were closed, you could run the spindle
as fast as you'd like, okay? Now, I could've started my spindle by commanding an M3S750 from MDI, but I could've just hit the FWD button. If I hit the FWD clockwise button without typing in 750 first, it's gonna start up that spindle at whatever RPM it was last running at, so if your tool had just
been running at 10,000 RPMs, and you load up an edge
finder with the doors closed, and press the FWD clockwise button, (cartoon shooting) it's gonna spin that edge
finder at 10,000 RPMs and it's gonna rip it in half. So, we've got an edge finder here that's actually been pulled apart by running about 7,500 RPMs
and we found the pieces. We did not, however,
find the center spring. Let's get back to our real part. So, my tool is spinning at 750 RPMs. Right next to the edge
that I'd like to pick up and I'm gonna flick the edge
of the edge finder there and get it wobbling pretty good. Now, I'm gonna come to my control and change to a .001 jog increment and I'm gonna jog up against that edge and I'm gonna keep jogging until the tip of the edge finder makes contact and straightens itself out, aligning with the body of the edge finder. Now, I'm gonna move in
on .0001 increments, one click at a time, until
that edge finder kicks off. Now, this is personal preference. For me, after it's kicked off to one side, I actually back it off by one click if I'm on a 1 thou increment. Now, at this point, we found the edge. We're gonna go to the offset page and we're gonna go to our G54 work offset and press part zero set under the x-axis. Now, let's repeat this
process for the y-axis. I flick the indicator again, I jog up against the y-axis until it looks pretty straight aligned, and I keep going one click at
a time until it kicks over. And I back it off by one click and I go to my y-axis work offset column and press part zero set. Okay, now we're gonna
switch to some pointy tool like a chamfer tool or a drill and check our work offset. I'm gonna jog down while
staying well above our part and enter some code under MDI. Now, you might want to write this down. I'm gonna enter G54G0G90X0Y0. What this is gonna do is it's gonna move using work offset G54, which is the offset that we just set. X and Y. G00 means go really fast, G90 says make all of our XY moves in relationship to that G54, and then X0 Y0 means
just go right to X0 Y0. Okay, I'm well above the part, I'm gonna press cycle start. From here, I'm gonna jog down just above the part and
see how things look. Okay, so our pointy
tool looks like it's off a certain amount from our edge. It's not where it should be. This is how an edge finder works, okay? What we've done here is we've found the edge of our edge finder instead of the center of our edge finder and we're gonna have to compensate. Now, in our case, the tip of our edge finder is .2" diameter. So, once we've set all
of our work offsets, we have to go back in and adjust things. We're gonna have to shift our x-axis, G54, to the right by .1" to compensate for the radius of our edge finder. We're also gonna have to
shift our y-axis, G54, by that same .1". Now, I'm going to a hand
jog .1" to the right and .1" in the Y and I'm gonna set our G54 X and Y again. It'll shift it by a hundred
thou each direction. Now, we could've just
gone to the offset page and entered plus .1 and minus .1, but until you've gotten used to this, it's a little safer just to
command it to go to X0, Y0, jog the hundred thou and the hundred thou. Okay, so I've changed my part out here to a finished part with
some milled surfaces on it. Now, the edge finder is only good within about a thousands of an inch, If my part has to be absolutely correct, the first time, and I don't have a probe, then I'm gonna go to my indicator. (machine working) I'm gonna jog down and I'm gonna indicate that left edge of the part from both the left side and from the right side. We're gonna take those two values and average them, right? We're gonna add them together
and then divide by two, so indicating the left side of my part, pretty straight forward. I just bring down my
indicator and sweep it, but how do I get to the
ridge edge of that part? It's not possible. So, we can grab a 123 block, set it up against the side of our part, and sweep that for the right side, but here's the trick. Find a nice flat ground insert like the one I've got here. This one is really easy to hold up against the side of our part. I'm gonna go ahead and jog that indicator over until it makes
contact with my insert. I'm then gonna sweep the insert until I can find the high spot. Once I find that high spot, I'm gonna switch to a 1/10 increment and I'm gonna jog in until
my indicator reads zero. Once there, I'm gonna sweep it again, making sure I'm still on that high spot. I have now found that
edge while coming at it from the right side of my part. Without touching the indicator at all, I'm gonna come up to my x-axis to an offset I'm not using
and pres part zero set to record that number for later. Now, I'm gonna rotate my indicator around 180 degrees being really careful not to bump that indicator. I'm gonna jog over and down. I'm gonna jog in. Once I'm close, I switch to
1/10 of a thou increment. I'm gonna sweep my part
until I find the high spot and then hand jog in until
my indicator reads zero. I'm gonna double check
it again by rotating it, making sure I'm still on the high spot. That's my edge from the left side. So, I now have two
values on my offset page. I'm gonna add those two values
together and divide by two. That new value is the
machine coordinate position directly above the edge of my part. My G54 x-value. I'm gonna go and sweep
the y-axis edge now. Okay, now we've set
our work offset, right, X and Y, but just like before, we need to check to make sure we didn't goof something up. I'm gonna switch to some pointy tool like a chamfer tool or a drill. I'm gonna command G54 G0 G90 X0 Y0. I'm gonna press cycle start. I'm gonna jog down and
see how things look. That looks really good. Okay, so at least visually, right, we know we're in the right spot. Okay, this brings us to the final tool we're gonna show you today. Our Haimer 3D-Sensor. This indicator works in all directions: X, Y, and Z, and we're gonna use it instead of an edge finder today. (machine working) We're gonna go ahead and jog down next to our part just like we would with an edge finder except
with this indicator, we don't start the spindle. We simply jog up against
the edge of our part. Now, as I move sideways, you'll see that my
indicator starts to move. Both the same and the large needle. Keep going until both
needles land on the zero. I'm switching to .0001. A little finer adjustment and that's it. So, right now, you can
see that the indicator tip is actually bent sideways
because what's happened is this indicator was already calibrated to put the center line of our spindle right above our edge of our part when both those large and
small dials read zero. It's compensating for the ball at the end of that stylus, so with this indicator at zero, zero, all I have to do is go to my offset page and press part zero set. We're done. That was it. Just jog up against the edge of a part, press part zero set. Now, I'm gonna go ahead and move it back here and set my Y. So, we've shown you how
to use an edge finder, we've shown you how to
really accurately pick up and edge with an indicator and we've shown you how simple
it is to use a 3D sensor. Well, remember, no matter
how you set your work offset, be sure to load up a pointy
tool in the spindle, right? The chamfer tool or drill, command it to go to your G54 X0 Y0 or whatever work offset you're using just to verify that things are where you think they should be. Well, thanks again for letting us be a part of your success and for watching this Haas Tip of the Day.
