Vacuum Fixture HELP!

[project5k]

wow, now thats the left hand knowing what the right hand knowing what the 14 other hands are doing.. automated move outta tha way clamping? pretty cool...

[Riceburner98]

No kidding! Not quite sure how something like Mach would handle that...

[project5k]

ACK, HACK, COFF, CHOKE!!!!!

no really, if you programmed the clamps as on/off, theres plenty ways to do it.... i bet you'd be hand coding that part tho, cause i dont think mastercam or babcad could handle it...

I've actually been very impressed with what all i've seen a single instance of mach 3 handle all at once, even on an older and slower computer... so i cant say anything negative, cause personally, i love it. simple, easy to understand, but loads of features are in there so when you grow, it can too, and it just works, and thats really all we care about, right?

[JimPAC]

Years ago I designed and built a little mill fixture for the same size part! The parts were 6061 T3 and I had to buy the bar stock slightly over size so I could turn to 2.5000. Now you can get the material to size.
This was a part that had over 22,000 parts in the order. I went with the Vise jaws first and got the customer to buy off Q/A.

I make most fixtures like this out of 2" aluminum plate that can usually be found surplus. I have extensive hydraulics usage in such applications but I learned a long time ago to keep it SIMPLE!

These little parts had an elliptical funnel and 4 10-32 cap screw holes with an O-ring grove. I programmed them for 3D and ran these on a Bridgeport Series II boss 6 mill. Guys in the shop averaged around 200 parts a shift and we knocked the order out in about 6 months with a second fixture.

The sliding clamp was made out of some cold rolled 1" X 4" bar and worked great. The operator had to be careful to torque the bolts just right and before we but the torque wrench on them the threads had to be inserted! We taped them down with a small ball peen hammer!

I never finished the engineering because Bill my foreman had the job done and running before I could finish. Any way here is a old drawing!

Good luck!

[project5k]

i'm not sure if its in the drawing, or if i just missed it or what, i'm not real sure how you generated the clamping force, looks like there is a plate that grabs the parts to hold them in place and then you have slots to tighten down and hold the plate in place..

is that what the hammer tapping was about?
tension the hold down bolts a little, and then tap it with a hammer?

[JimPAC]

That's right, just as you would do using vise jaws. Not shown are the heavy / hardened 1.5 washers and 1/2-13 Allen head bolts! Also to apply pressure there were two evenly spaced 3" long 1/2-13 allen bolts that swung up from the edge of the 2" plate. The same thing could be accomplished with Edge/plate clamps!

I was taught to use a 4 - 8 oz ball peen for such applications. machinist touch and tap and feel the part nest/ seat into location. The material gets milled away so you cant harm the part. When that side was done you then have a machined service to locate with / no tap required.

Everyone needs to develop the "Touch", practice with a piece of round stock in standard vise jaws. Start a little angled and tap into position down on two matching parallels!


Keep in mind this tool was easily amortized because of the quantity.

Send me a part drawing and I can provide you planning and anything else you need!

Jim