An Update: The SMM2 & My Shop

[TravisR100]

First, thanks to everyone that's helped me here in these forums. I wouldn't have bought a Haas if it hadn't been for the information I got here.

I'm sure there's some way to look up all my other posts without me posting links to them here so I won't rehash them.

It's been about 3 weeks since my new SMM2 showed up. Some business travel has limited me to about a week of evenings with the machine. Aside from a retrofit I did on a tiny little Dyna training mill, this is the first experience I've had with CNC. I sold the Dyna right after I was done doing the retrofit and only made a few cuts with it.

My experience with the local HFO has been pretty good. I'd give them an 8 out of 10 at this point. I live in Houston, TX and my local HFO is in Spring, a suburb of Houston. My understanding from reading here is that your mileage may vary depending on where you live with regards to the HFO's.

My mill sits in a home workshop with no 3 phase power. We have a funky garage layout. I put up a wall that left a two car garage for the cars and the remaining area for myself. What I ended up with is a 14.5 x 15.25 workshop with an additional tiny triangle shaped area in one corner. I use the triangle area for the bandsaw.

So, the SMM2 showed up, the Haas tech came out to set it up, and the phase converter blew. American Rotary makes the converter. There tech support is excellent. They ring you through to a tech even after hours. They overnighted me new parts with Saturday delivery at no charge and I was up and running the next morning. My HFO knew I was excited to get up and going and they had their tech show back up on a Saturday afternoon to complete the setup.

I spent my evenings the next couple of weeks learning the control. Pretty easy stuff although I'm sure there's more power under the hood I've yet to discover. The latest software (16.06B) definitely has some bugs to be worked out.

After finally getting up and running and using IPS to just do some basic probing and facing I started searching for CAD and CAM software. For CAD I ended up going with Alibre Standard edition although I'm seriously eyeing Solidworks at the moment.

I started with Visual Mill 6.0 Standard for the CAM but I wasn't very impressed. It does what it's supposed to do however the documentation is quite incomplete and is obviously not up to date with the current version of the software. Being new to all this it was frustrating to be working at night after tech support hours and have their documentation incomplete. So, I switched to OneCNC. I will definitely say this is a much more polished piece of software with more complete documentation. Not excellent, but much better.

I have an initial part I want to produce. I got it all done in Visual Mill before becoming frustrated and switching. So I then had to learn OneCNC which set me back a few more days. I'm finally getting the hang of it and in the last couple of days I've made great progress on my first part. It's a static port cover for an aircraft. Basic for most of you I'm sure but a good part to learn on. 2.5D part. Nothing fancy. Three ops to complete it and a little fixture. I'm halfway through op 2 on the first batch of 20.

This is the first real runtime my machine has seen. Prior to this run with my playing around I came up with a list of issues for the HFO. Here's what I've run into so far.

The coolant leaks out of the bottom corners of the door opening on the left and right. The HFO tech put a little wedge of sealant on the inside corners to keep it from running around. This worked at first but more sealant will be needed. Still leaking. I also discovered today that coolant actually leaks through the top and bottom where the door handle is attached. Haven't looked into this yet.

When doing my first facing cuts with a new Glacern face mill I noticed a little ridge between the facing passes. Pulling out an indicator and doing a 10" sweep I was showing .001" TIR on the x axis and .0006 TIR on the y axis. The tech came out, tried using the leveling jacks to fix it, and ended up shimming the spindle. I'm now 0 TIR on the y and .0004 on the x. This greatly improved the hump between passes.

My other great discovery when I started really using the machine was what a poor design they have regarding chips getting through to the sump. Over an hour my pcool went from a fire hose to not being able to reach the tools. A look in the sump revealed why. Pretty much a solid surface of aluminum fines on top.

I set out today to do what I could to rectify this. First, I cleared the lines by lightly back blowing air through. I also installed some screen material over the vertical slotted drains on the inclined plate just aft of the auger. On the sides where this plate meets the machine there is a .25" gap between the plate and machine edge at the bottom and a .5" gap at the top. All the chips were going through here straight back into the sump. I made a visit to the local aquarium store and found a "filter sock." It's a bag-like filter attached to a plastic ring with about a 6" diameter. I fabricated a tray out of acrylic with an opening for the sock and placed it below the return opening in the sump. This seems to help. See pictures.

On the coolant pump there is a 1" or so gap between the screen and the machine where additional filter material could be inserted in front of the screen. I did this as well. See pictures.

I also took everyone's advice here and instlled a water filter just after the pump outlet. See pictures.

Before any of this I was concerned about my coolant and so installed a Zebra Muscle Coalescer. Seems like a great device and adds 15 gallons to the total coolant volume. I got the hammerhead skimmer which has a problem with the aluminum chips. I have a sumpster skimmer on order that will hopefully take care of this problem. See pictures and google Zebra Coalescer for more info.

I'm also attaching a pic of the wall in my shop where I have two 36"x72" shelf units and some base and upper cabinets. This is the "before" picture. I have Storeloc units on order to replace this wall. This is the 183" wall.

I'm looking for a deal on an SL-10 to replace my Jet GHB-1340A manual lathe. I'm so overwhelmed with the mill right now I'm glad I don't have the lathe to contend with at the moment.

Enjoy the pics. Thanks to all of you who have offered your help.

[TravisR100]

Forgot to mention one hiccup with the HFO I was NOT happy about. The tech that came out to shim the spindle. He was the same guy that applied the sealant to stop the coolant leak. He came out that morning to look at the machine. He had to actually get inside the machine and shut the door to apply the sealant. No big deal. This was 11:00 AM. I come home from work at 5:30 PM. I open the door and there are huge rust spots on the table, the way covers, my vise, my tooling in the changer, and even on the machine panel.

After steel wool and WD-40 I had the table, way covers, and vise clean. I didn't even notice the tooling until the next day. I called the HFO about it. Apparently the tech thinks he had acetone on his hands from a previous job. I've got no experience with acetone. However this stuff rusted like someone put sulfuric acid on it. I was quite unhappy.

I'm a bit OCD when it comes to my machines and tooling. I take the utmost care of them. I go so far as to put a lot of tooling in plastic shoe boxes or ziploc bags with dessicant to prevent any rust.

[Geof]

Silicone sealant????

Sounds like it, acetic acid is released when the silicone sealant cures and it can cause havoc especially in a confined space.

[TravisR100]

The sealant he used was Sikaflex. I don't know if this did it or it was acetone as he thought.

[Geof]

Which Sikaflex? Some are polyurethane and at least one is a silicone.

I do not think it can be acetone causing rust spots. I have used acetone for washing metals parts and never had a rust problem.

[TravisR100]

Just says "Sika Construction Sealant."

[Geof]

I did some Googling, here is the MSDS for Sikaflex Construction Sealant, was he really using this????

http://www.sikaconstruction.com/msds...Sealant-us.PDF

[Delw]

The reason for the rust is due to the humidity and/or someone didnt spray every down with coolant, or your coolant is junk and or too light.

it takes less than 3 hours for surface rust to set in. your in texas I am in AZ same deal unless your running AC its not as bad.
my best advice is before you shut your machine off run your properly mixed coolant with your face mill for 30 seconds and let it get all over everything then DONT wipe it off.

if your coolant is too lean a it will rust fast, hot climates need to run a tad richer and NEVER I repeat NEVER use straight water or anything that will take the coolant residue off the machine. windex is really bad.

I bought 2 brand new vise's wiped all the grease off with with windex knowing I was going to hose them down with coolant in a few mins, got a phone call got tied up came back out into the shop late that evening and they had surface rust, pissed me off big time cause I know better.

another product is mineral spirits it cleans parts just as good as acetone but has oil in it so things dont rust. dip a rag in it and wipre you wises and table off if you must, DONT over due it as I am sure ts dont good for the coolant.( another words use a damp rag not a dripping one.

if your anal about it use Wd-40 on a clean rag

[TravisR100]

Geof, yep, that's what he was using. I'm sure because he left the tube. Delw, this wasn't normal everyday rust. Something he had on his hands or clothing caused this rust.

I've had the machine for several weeks and no problem with rust at all. The inside of the machine is always covered in coolant and any parts that I wipe coolant off of I go over with LPS3.

This rust set in within a few hours and it was very definite spots where the machine was touched that it did so.

I'm running Vasco 1000 at 10%.

[crabbass]

Travis,
In my experience, I do not use anything in the machine except coolant. If you use products like the ones listed in this post, (WD-40, LPS 3, mineral spirits, windex, etc. ) you will destroy your coolant!! What Geof was trying to explain about the silicone was the vapors from the product that came from the silicone tube. You could spray acetone all over your machine (ruin your coolant) but this wouldn't cause rust. It wouldn't help either, as It would be a good product to wash off anything on the metal that was preventing rust.
During my internship, when I was still in school An older tool and die guy I worked with wouldn't let you touch his parts, for fear of the acid in your fingerprints. I thought he was F-in with me, but my tech school teacher backed him and added, "especially don't let the Italians touch" as they eat a lot of tomato type sauces and are highly acidic. YOU can easily prove this by taking a shiny piece of steel (scrap chunk), wipe it clean with acetone, and then apply one of your fingerprints. check it out the next day. You could accelerate this by squirting some of the silicone out next to the piece of steel.

[TravisR100]

Crabass, yep, I'm well aware of the fingerprint thing. THe only time anything other than coolant has been in my machine is the fine wipe down of my tools with LPS3 when they come out of the machine and go into the storage drawer. The only other time was wiping down the section of the table before mounting my vise. Other than that, coolant only.

Believe me, I had a long discussion with my HFO about the rust issue that arose after the tech came out.

[peter.blais]

Question: What speed and feed are you typically using in the aluminum? I know you said .050" DOC...

It seems to me you are getting far more fines then you should be, unless you machined a whole ton of aluminum haha.

I'm taking about .006" per tooth and ~.002" per tooth for finishing and not having any issue with excessive fines.

I also just let my mill get blasted all over with coolant and then don't blow / wipe it down, leave the doors open so it isn't a sauna. In the morning everything is coated in a pretty healthy film of oil which goes away once it's been run again.

I haven't needed my HFO for anything since they came in and installed it. My chip auger gearbox sounds pretty noisey though. The tech had the look on his face that he figured it would burn up in short order, when he heard it. Hopefully it does that before warantee runs up LOL.