What’s the Optimal Monitor Configuration?

Too many!

As CNC’ers and machinists, we spend a lot of time in front of computer monitors. You’ve all seen multiple monitor configurations, and like me, I’ll bet you’ve wondered whether they’d help your productivity. If nothing else, these setups look cool as all getout, don’t they?

Gorgeous, but still too many?

But then I start asking myself what I would actually put up on all those screens? Would it be too distracting?

Don’t get me wrong, I have a great big Dell monitor. It’s a 27″ flat panel with 2560 x 1440 resolution. I got it on sale for surprisingly little money, and I have loved it ever since. It’s big enough I don’t have to use bifocals and crane my neck to see it, which is a blessing in itself.

About right? Lose the top screen?

But the distraction thing is a real issue. I find that when I need to get something done, I have to stop the distractions. I’ve got to close the e-mail, the RSS feed reader, and all of the other million-and-one interesting but distracting things that come across my computer screen.… Read the rest

Getting the Best Performance from ER Collet Chucks

ER Collets are actually an excellent workholding system. Consider how the different toolholders ranked ranked in terms of stiffness (see my Milling Surface Finish page for more on this):

Surprising that the lowly collet chuck performed nearly as well as finicky shrink fit tooling and quite a bit better than more expensive hydraulic and power chuck-style holders!

For best surface finish, we want to maximize the modal or static stiffness. Here, the collet chuck is second only to the shrink fit holders. Where roughing is concerned, the Dynamic Stiffness is important for suppressing chatter. For maximum material removal rates, we want to maximize Dynamic Stiffness. Here the Collet Chuck also performs pretty darned well, and it is in hogging out lots of material that the hydraulic and milling chuck style holders start to come into their own. The shrink-fit performs poorly because the shrink fit doesn’t dampen the vibrations, it just holds the tool very very tightly. Makes you wonder if it doesn’t make it more likely to ring like a bell when held so tight?… Read the rest

Rob Wilson’s “Big Dog” Bicycle Built for Four

I love it when somebody does something offbeat, but lavishes tremendous care and craftsmanship into the design. I’ve got a few like that from MAKE magazine’s blog (if you haven’t subscribed, you need to!). First up is Rob Wilson’s “Big Dog” four person bicycle:

Doesn’t Big Dog look like it would be a blast to ride around in with your friends or family?… Read the rest

Larsplatoon’s Electromagnetic Coil Gun

A coil gun propels projectiles using an electromagnet. They’re sometimes incorrectly called rail guns or mass drivers. The military has experimented with rail guns (an alternate style electromagnetic weapon) on a large scale (large meaning battleship gun-sized weapons at the Naval Surface Warfare Center with a 200 mile range), but Larsplatoon has build one for the individual sci fi soldier:

Note the charging capacitors in the Bullpup shoulder stock…

Check the MAKE magazine post for some video of the coil gun in action.… Read the rest

A Quick Course in Feeds and Speeds, Part 2 (Practice)

Here is Part 2 of the Quick Course in Feeds and Speeds which focuses on how to use the G-Wizard Feeds and Speeds calculator:

The video demonstrates the basics plus in depth walkthroughs of slotting, peripheral, and pocketing feeds and speeds calculations that show how the Cut Optimizer helps you decide on the best depth and width of cut as well as evaluate trade offs between HSS and Carbide tooling.… Read the rest

A Quick Course in Feeds and Speeds, Part 1 (Theory)

I’m putting together a quick video course in feeds and speeds for machinists. Here is the first installment:

Part 1 takes you through some of the theory. It’s a 10 minute video that covers things like chip thinning, relationship of cutter edge radius to chip thickness for best tool life, ballnose cutter compensation, and a number of other topics associated with feeds and speeds. Part 2 (not yet ready), will be a demo of the G-Wizard Feeds and Speeds software that puts the theory into practice.… Read the rest

Rock Lobster? More Like Robot Lobsters

This video (hat tip to MAKE Magazine) was a real hoot:

Is there anything some talented person somewhere hasn’t made or isn’t working on as we speak?… Read the rest

QCTP Boring Bar Holders

I’m a firm believer that you can never have too many boring bars. If nothing else, this is an application where rigidity is always a problem as you reach down a hole with that long skinny boring bar. Shorter bars and fatter bars are more rigid, but they don’t work for every case. So you wind up needing a big enough selection so that when you go to find the shortest fattest bar that will work, you’re in luck.

With those random thoughts in mind, I enjoyed seeing this photo over on Chaski of Frank Ford’s set of boring bar holders for the QCTP lathe:

They look like they’ll hold the bars with less chatter than the usual cheezy stick-the-bar in a square slot holders…

And while we’re on the topic of boring, though not of QCTP boring, how about Glenn Wegman’s horizontal boring setup on his lathe from the same Chaski thread:

Notice he built a table to sit on the cross slide to hold the work…

With machinists, where there is a will, there is a way!… Read the rest

G-Wizard Custom Tool Cribs

I’m still busy making G-Wizard videos. They’re a real quick way to show someone a lot of information. The one I just finished is all about making custom Tool Cribs for G-Wizard:

Custom Tool Cribs can serve a lot of purposes. Since you can have unlimited Tool Cribs, they can correspond to all sorts of useful things:

- The tools in a tool changer.

- The tools in a cart sitting next to the machine.

- Tools that need rework of some kind–broken endmill, face mill needing new inserts, tools needing sharpening, or whatever. There is a “Move” command that makes it easy to move tools between cribs. If a tool needs rework, simply “Move” it to the Rework crib so you can keep track of it.

The video is all about a custom crib that was the idea of a friend of mine named Peter. He wanted a crib that reflected the fact that his shop strictly uses TiAlN Carbide Endmills, HSS Twist Drills, plus a variety of indexable tooling. Pretty easy to set that up, so now Peter gets a menu tailored to the way his shop really operates.… Read the rest

G-Wizard Calculator Video Tour

G-Wizard Calculator Video Tour

I just uploaded a new video tour of G-Wizard to YouTube. It gives a brief overview of each of the applications included with G-Wizard. I really like video as a way of getting a quick intro to something without requiring a lot of tedious documentation reading. Here is the video:

A quick video tour of G-Wizard… Read the rest