Hey guys - I've been hovering over this site for tips and tricks for quite some time now, and my recent endeavors at work have finally lead me to creating an account for posting. In short, I've been doing CNC work in some capacity for 7 years or so (I've had virtually NO lathe experience), transitioning from button pushing to set ups, to more complex set ups and now programming. I've only known G-code programming for that time, and I'm catching on to Mastercam pretty well, but the Mazatrol is giving me a headache. I guess I understand the basics well enough to get by at this point. All I got before the programmer left was a 10 hour crash course in which he showed me set up, some turning, threading, adding/removing taper. A lot of that stuff is pretty user friendly, but in the last couple days I've generated a couple of questions that I could use help on:
1). I was attempting to tap with an M6x1 .5 in deep the other day, but couldn't figure it out. Do I follow the standard formulas for tapping? I think I was spinning at 200 RPM and feeding 8 in/min. That didn't work very well - I'd get threads at the bottom of the .5 but not at the top of the hole. 200 RPM doesn't seem aggressive to me at all, is it meant to be run a little quicker? Do I need to indicate in my tap when setting up?
2). I had an issue when using the tailstock my rougher would finish it's business and then the turret was returning to home to change to the finisher, which resulted in the finisher coming into Z0. at a sharp angle and the tailstock being in the way. Is it possible to have the turret stay at it's position on Z and just back off on the X for it's change?
Thanks for any help you guys are willing and able to lend me. Thanks for having me, too.
1). I was attempting to tap with an M6x1 .5 in deep the other day, but couldn't figure it out. Do I follow the standard formulas for tapping? I think I was spinning at 200 RPM and feeding 8 in/min. That didn't work very well - I'd get threads at the bottom of the .5 but not at the top of the hole. 200 RPM doesn't seem aggressive to me at all, is it meant to be run a little quicker? Do I need to indicate in my tap when setting up?
2). I had an issue when using the tailstock my rougher would finish it's business and then the turret was returning to home to change to the finisher, which resulted in the finisher coming into Z0. at a sharp angle and the tailstock being in the way. Is it possible to have the turret stay at it's position on Z and just back off on the X for it's change?
Thanks for any help you guys are willing and able to lend me. Thanks for having me, too.