Haas Gantry Router modifications

[Donkey Hotey]

We just bought a Haas GR-712 at work. It's got the plain aluminum bed and the extended Z travel options. It's a nice machine. We don't have power to it yet but, I'm already looking at some changes. I figured there are a few other people in here with GR-510 and GR-512 machines. Maybe we can share ideas.

Here's the first modification I'm considering: there is no lighting on the machine from the factory. We don't have great light where the machine is and even if we did, the gantry could easily block it.

The underside of the gantry bridge already has four drilled and tapped holes. Two of them were used for a shipping bracket (1/2-13). At the highest Z position, a stubby endmill holder is still 3-4" below that underside surface.

I reasoned that a 4 foot fluorescent light fixture could easily fit in there and mount to the factory fastener holes. The local home center sells a water resistant 4 foot fixture for under $100.

I'd run the cable up the back surface, over to the factory cable guide system. It would pass down the same casting path as the rest of the wiring. One of the column access holes would make an ideal location for the light switch (on the nearside column, halfway up). The wire would run all the way back to the control cabinet and connect to the factory GFCI. This is the same way the factory lighting is connected on the other machines.

The only permanent modifications would be a couple of 1/4-20 holes in the bridge for cable clamps (between the light and the factory cable guide on top) and holes in the access cover to install the switch. Optionally, the bridge could be drilled directly and the wiring passed right into the core of the machine.

Taking this idea one step further, you could also install a quartz halogen light closer to the operator, under the bridge and pointing across the work area and only use it during setup (same as the high intensity lighting on the other machines).

Any thoughts?

[glenn105]

We have been running a Haas Gantry Router in our shop for about 3-1/2 years now. It's been a nice machine, but there has been one thing that we had to address. We use Kool Mist 77 and the MISTING PUMP UNIT failed TWICE in the first 18 months use and needed to be replaced. After the second time, we made our own Stainless Steel Misting Pump with a minor design change. Since installing the redesigned stainless pump, we've had no issues.

I was told by Haas that Kool Mist 77 was not the recommended Misting formula, but I really coudn't see spending 3 times as much on their recommended formula. I find it hard to believe that the Kool Mist could be the source of our problem. As mentioned, since redesigned, our pump has had NO ISSUES continuing to use the Kool Mist 77.

best regards,
-Glenn
Buzzards Bay, MA

[rowbare]

Do you think that the tube and mount could handle the acceleration? I think that the gantry changing direction from 800 IPM to -800 IPM would either flex the tube enough to either break it or break the mount.

[Geof]

What did I do on the GR510? Some of it can be seen in the pictures.

First thing was build an enclosure around with polycarbonate screens on sliding frames to keep looky-lous out of the machine area and bits of stuff in.

Tapped 9/16" NF on a 4" grid over the whole table and screwed in flanged inserts with a 3/8"-16 internal thread. These are replaceable if they get damaged.

Covered the area where the gantry goes home with aluminum sheet and troughs to drain coolant splashed here back to the tank.

Fabricated splash guards out of 18 gauge stainless and mounted them on the gantry as travelling splash guards.

Built a drip tray at the end of the machine to catch coolant splash and drain it back into the troughs running back to the tank.

Put clear plastic curtains across the back of the gantry and across the front of the stainless splash guard to minimize coolant splash. These simply ride over the work piece.

Built a little swinging vise wrench holder; if the wrench is not hung here the holder it self swings out and blocks the optical safety system. This is to avoid firing up the X axis in a rapid and trying to shear off the wrench with the gantry. (Not in pictures)

Built an extension to the splashguard at the back under the carousel to collect coolant dripping off tools. (Not in pictures)

Made a coolant shut-off valve that totally stops coolant flow when the head moves to the toolchange position to avoid squirting half a gallon of coolant on the floor at every tool change. (Not in picture)

Didn't need extra lights as is obvious from the pictures; you almost need dark glasses in our shop.

I think that is about the lot.

Funny thing is I did all this because I was going to use the machine for aluminum machining on a retirement project I had in mind. That never transpired and now the machine is almost fully occupied drilling and tapping lengths of tube in multiple vises and holders spread out over the table. Sometimes it also fills in for one of the VF machines when things back up and it is available.

[CJH]

Geof,

That's a slick set up of mods on the router. The encloser around the machine is a real nice touch. We have a similar problem with people wandering into the router area to see the machine run.

CJH

[Donkey Hotey]

As promised, here is the first installment of what we did to our new GR-712 router. Being a prototype and development center, we never know what kind of material we might have to deal with. It could be anything from sheet metal all the way up to 1 foot thick blocks of polyurethane foam. This is particularly a problem with the blocks of foam that often need to be machined right to the edge of the stock and need to be held from the sides.

I could have drilled and tapped a regular grid on the table but, that would have likely left a gap of some distance when holding full size material. The holes always seem to be either right under the edge or too far away.

This was my solution:


I started with a 1 foot x 1 foot grid engraved on the table. In the interest of future ease of work location, the grid lines up in perfect machine coordinates. It's 1 foot in from the X origin and one foot from the Y origin. I figured that first foot would only be used for the very largest jobs.

If you look closely at the table (photo above taken from the foot of the machine), you'll see that the holes are all beyond (+x) and above (+y) the grid lines. That's true of every grid except the first row and first column.



Here you can see the first square up near the pendant. Hopefully, it all begins to make sense. The pattern starts from this lower right corner. The idea is that any full-foot sized raw stock can be clamped down to the table. In this example, the clamps are spaced for a 1 foot wide, 4 foot long, 1/4" thick piece of material.

The holes are 0.5" from the engraving lines. That is (not coincidentally) the same distance as the 1/2-13 Mitee-Bite clamps.

I also designed and made our first batch of toe clamps with the same offset (shown in the photo). The plan with the clamps is for only 0.25" of clamping distance and a hard work stop to line up the stock. Each clamp is engraved with the offset height so we can quickly identify the various sizes. We're banging these out of our VF-5 every 4 minutes while we're working on other things.

The next addition is going to be a bucket of 1" tall donut spacers with counterbored holes. The idea will be to space any work up off the table by screwing in as many donuts as necessary to support the stock but, miss the cuts. All of the surplus holes should provide plenty of spacing support.

Finally, you'll see that the table was also drilled and tapped for our two Kurt 675 vises as well as our HRT-210 rotary and (if we really run out of workholding) two more Kurt 3600s. The holes were marked on the table to reduce setup confusion for future users.