There are lots of various sized mills available and fitting a grinding attachment would be minimal compared to converting a Surface Grinder.I've looked around quite a bit and haven't found any small mills that can surface grind Rc55 springsteel to +/- .0002" tolerance over 5". Besides, everyone I've talked to says that mills don't that the correct speeds and bearings to do surface grinding. So far the Syil U2 (http://www.syilamerica.com/product_u2.asp) seems to be the only thing I've found. I'm also not a machinist and don't know the first thing about choosing machinery or fitting and adjusting them.
Plus you will have the advantage of being able to do milling on it.I have a CNC routher now that I'm able to do all my milling on.
Ebay or this forums bargain basement would be places to start looking.Done that but can't find anything suitable. Other suggestions of places look? Really - I've looked hard and called many places that sell machinery and have had very little luck.
The machine at the top of my consideration list is the Syil U2 http://www.syilamerica.com/product_u2.asp which is the least expensive and smallest CNC surface grinder I could find. The maker says that it's compatible with many software packages though acknowledges that the ones to run it in the surface grinding configuration need to be totally 3D.
I've looked around quite a bit and haven't found any small mills that can surface grind Rc55 springsteel to +/- .0002" tolerance over 5". Besides, everyone I've talked to says that mills don't that the correct speeds and bearings to do surface grinding.
-- Rich --
Think you need something just a little bit bigger than what your considering.Why? The only thing we'll be doing with the machine is grinding springsteel max of 5" long.
MSG and Enco sell a bench top surface grinder. They could be CNC'd completely ie; controller, stepper, PC, Mach software, etc. and you would be ahead of the game.I couldn't find dimensions for the MSG but the 3 foot (plus travel?) Enco is far too large for our shop space.
I believe that MACH can run a surface grinder nicely, but some G-Code creation to address the operation of surface grinding will be in order.I'm glad that Mach can do it and I realize that I need to find some g-code software. I'm currently using Sheetcam which I really like but isn't applicable for SG work. Any suggestions on software to convert CAD to g-code?
Remember that you grind / remove material at .0001 to .00025" with a small surface grinding machine. Grinding to tolerance is similar but a different operation than say milling a piece. There are books written on grinding and the proper application of grinding wheels to different materials not to mention sites like Norton and others on the internet.I don't "remember" anything as I'm new to machining. ".0001 to .00025" sounds just fine by me... and I really appreciate pointers to places like Norton (never heard of them before). Thanks, I'll check them out. Please feel free to "mention" more! I need the help!
Maybe try to get in touch with Keithorr (Ed) and he might be able to point you in the right direction.Thanks for the links! I've just e-mailed to Keithorr and copied the stuff on that forum topic (even if I don't understand it it may come in handy at some point).
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,6024.0.html
http://www.keithorrblowpipes.com/contact.htm
The machine at the top of your list is a milling machine ??????????Yes but that's the only small CNC I can find that does SG. Probably not well? I don't know as I'm not a machinist and don't know my way around here. If someone would come up with a small CNC SG I'll buy it. Or if someone would convert a small SG to CNC I'll buy it. Any suggestions/leads?
I am an engineer, i looked at that machine and had to laugh at the coolant nozzle when used for grinding the coolant tank would be empty in no time and the coolant would be on the floor, up the walls, all over the place. ;D ;D ;DThanks for the input - I had no clue.
There are no guards around the table to keep the coolant in check.
As you may not know you cannot do milling on a router the bigger the router the less accuracy due to flexing.I don't know. That U2 seemed pretty small and heavy-duty though. But as I say... I don't know. I do know that I'll never need to grind anything over 5" long (which is pretty small?)
On my own milling machine i milled a 12.5 mm slot x 165mm long the length of an aluminium billet i made 50 items the tolerance i achieved was .005mm maxThe stuff we need to do is grind springsteel 5" long with less than .0002" over that length... and we need to make thousands of them.
Have you thought of wire EDM ?The photo above is a wire EDM job.
Maybe forming them on a press "Would Be A Lot Quicker" then grind to width.I didn't know you can press spring steel into a profile??? Does it change the temper or density? Probably very expensive if you'd need to make a diferent form for each of the shapes (profiles) we need?
Hate to be a killer of joy but you asked for additional info. That machine is not right for the quantities and what you want to do. It's your money and do as you wish.I wish that people will tell me what I'm doing wrong and what I should be doing - and so far I'm pleased with all the advice I'm getting. Advice is cheap - buying the wrong machine expensive (and stupid!).
You need to grind wet to avoid heat.I realize that. The Syil guys say that those photos don't show the proper coolant system that you can get with the machine. I'm also figuring that we'll need a custom chuck, splashguards, auto-dresser, etc....
No, ain't no deisgner of reeds by any means, but my father's music major instrument was the accordian. He repaired them, and hand made reads...Sounds like you've got a good handle on what we're up against.
Now if a pro shop can't rationalize out making money on your item or knows proper investment to meet your criteria what makes you think your going to do it for a fraction of cost and with an infearier machine."Pro" shops can't seem to make reeds at any price - period. We're not looking to make reeds at a fraction of the cost than we can get them from the Italians or Czech... we would gladly buy them if they cost 5 times as much as accordion reeds - but we don't want accordion reeds, we want concertina reeds - but no one makes concertina reeds for sale... so if we can't find someone to make them for us... we have to make them ourselves.
Have you ever considered changing the design of the reed?Yes, but there's not much one can do before they're no longer concertina reeds.
It would be in the realms of possibility to make your own press tool by CNC SG forget the reeds.I'm not sure what you mean by that. What's a press tool? Can it squish spring steel into these profiles: http://home.comcast.net/~r-morse/BBox/images/reeds-e-a.gif
Personally I dont see a problem with a SG conversion. I'm a toolmaker, what your talking about doesn't seem all that difficult. =I'm a designer and know next to nothing about machinery. It's sounding like we need to hire someone to convert a nice SG to CNC plus wet, chuck, dresser, fixtures - AND - the computer, software and all configured for us to use. I'd love some suggestions of who we could talk to for doing this.
How fast your going to produce these parts is a question though.Which I have no answer for. I don't have a clue how long it takes to grind a profile on a short piece of spring steel. 15 minutes? An hour? 3 hours? If it takes as long as 3 hours per blank then we can run two a day, 10 a work week, and we need 88 blanks for a years supply so that's.. about 2 1/2 months. That's okay by us.
Start with a good quality machine....The start for us is for someone to tell us what are good quality machines that would be suitable for CNC conversion and some suggestions of where to look for someone to do the conversion work. I'm all ears!
It would be in the realms of possibility to make your own press tool by CNC SG forget the reeds.I'm not sure what you mean by that. What's a press tool? Can it squish spring steel into these profiles: http://home.comcast.net/~r-morse/BBox/images/reeds-e-a.gif
-- Rich --
In general most CAD programs will genrate a DXF for manipulation.Yes, and my program does that. But one of the problems (and my original question on this topic) is "can I use Mach3 for surface grinding?" AND - I need some program to convert my CAD to g-code. Any suggestions?
Unless someone can directly relate from experience the pitfalls in making your specific item you shouldn't expect a concrete answer or viable solution to a production problem.Yes I know people who make these reeds and they are being very helpful. Between them and knowing the historic ways of making these reeds it seems clear that I need to have a small high quality surface grinder which has been heavily customized to make reeds. I have lots of answers but for the specifics of which machine and who to customize it. My reed-making friends can't help me there because 2 of them use machinery which was made for making reeds over a century ago, one is rich and hired a company to make the machine and one is a machinist who spent an ungodly amount of time and money to alter his own machine to work.
Back to square one. Does anyone here know if I can use Mach3 for surface grinding?
Any suggestions on CAD to g-code software?
Any suggestions for a small high-quality CNC surface grinder - OR - someone to convert a SG to CNC?
2). CAM program, How much you wanna spend? I use OneCNC XR2 Mill , but there are others Master CAM, Gibbs, Delcam, etc. you can set your cut depths in these programs, and they will all take a 3D model and machine it.I just called all those software places and every one of them have no info on their sites about surface grinding and when I called them they said that their software won't work on CNC surface grinders. I don't understand what's going on?
I can convert one for you, BUT, In your case with all the concerns involved, I would build a custom job. How much you want to spend?I hope to spend under $10,000. Is that at all realistic?
Any cam program will work with what you are trying to do. Check out BobcadThanks for the reference... I just checked them out... and talked to them... and their software does NOT do surface grinding.
you only need to put out G-code if you plan on using Mach and you need to control 3 axis and are only going to perform a 2 axis interpulation(x&z) the y will be bumped over at the end of stroke.This all is very frustrating. I've called 5 CAM software companies today and none of them do surface grinding. Is it that there is no market for producing software that writes code for SG? I wonder why.
If all else contact me I believe I can write these for you.It certainly may come down to that.
Your cost would be feasible if you were doing the conversion yourself.Conversion for what a manual or automatic SG to CNC? Conversion of DXF to g-code?
I believe any quality grinder will work (although you want gibs not ball ways, its a finish issue) Brown & Sharp and Thompson are a few more SG to look forThanks... I'll check those brands out.
Looking at some of the radius involved I believe you would be best served by a belt grinder.Now that's an interesting idea. I've heard that the more modern Italian reed companies use belt grinders but I never knew what they were. You're mention of that got me Googling around. Very interesting. I'll continue to check them out.
While they may not specifically support surface grinding, I can't see how if you can control X,Y and Z from any software you would not be able to adapt that to grinding if you had a machine set up for CNC.That's what I would assume... except that *I'm* not able to do that. I'd have to hire someone to figure it out, set it up for me, and teach me how to make (convert my CAD to) g-code files for it.
The real problem may be the diameter and width of the wheel in relation to the contour your looking for.I think that's solved. The reed grinders I know either have the spindle tilted at about 2 degrees, or a titled bed, or a beveled wheel... the idea is that only a point of the wheel touches the blank to be ground. Lots of coolant and only very small point grind per pass keeps the steel from loosing it's temper. My friend who makes reeds says that for each pass he moves Y .0005" until the end of the blank and then starts over but down Z .0005" for the next series of passes. My understanding is that this is pretty much what all the concertina makers do (that use a SG).
how do you produce the reeds now?We don't. Our current models use accordion reeds which we buy in bulk from Italy. We *have* made our own concertina reeds but they've been by entirely hand filing (only for replacement work) and some by working with machine shops to have them produce them (no joy).
I noticed you mentioned hand finishing a while ago in one of your posts, you may allways have to do that operation anyway since each batch may have a slightly different property.Yup. Reeds always need to be hand finished. Even the best made ones in the world from the most sophisticated machines. We'd be very pleased if we'd be able to come within 20 cents (100 cents = 1 semitone) off the machine. Reeds are so sensitive that you could take a reed and it will have a different pitch if put in one part of the instrument or another part - so they have to always be fined tuned anyway. We expect that.
To be honest I had never thought about this sort of thing before, now you have me wondering how Honner has made harmonoca's all these years or are they all flat reeds?All those reeds have a very sophisticated and exacting multiple curvature. Hohner has an incredible wealth of reedmaking knowledge which they guard extremely well.
OK now you bring up the 2.5D approach to grinding the reeds. It is an easier approach BUT very "slow" in comparison to the 3D approach. THat process Could be done on a GOOD SG with CNC controll. New machines are available.By "that" process do you mean the 2.5D or 3D?
ALSO it will require a GOOD cam package to produce reliable program code at that level of interaction. You are moving from a fluid 3d move to a series of simple moves to emulate the same effect. It gets complicated in the code required.So it sounds like I should be able to get a machine to grind reeds with a 2.5D package? Show me the way!
SO if you are going to have to HAND tune each reed anyway then the extreme griding tolerance is really NOT a factor. Just a good repeatable profile down to a usable tolerance.Yes. I'm hoping that we'll be able to achieve results within 20 cents.
In the beginning you mentioned 1000s of reeds but later mentioned only a few 100 a year. (;-) There is a big difference in what you can get away with machine wise there.Hmmm... Sorry about the error/confusion. There are 44 pitches of reeds we regularly use (and rarely about 24 higher and lower pitches) and our first years run of concertina-reeded boxes is expected to at least 30 boxes. Each box usually has 2 same-pitch reeds... so 2 reeds x 30 boxes = 60 same-pitch reeds/year. If each blank we grind can be split into 30 reeds that means we'd need 2 blanks x 44 pitches = 88 blanks ground for our first year's production. Just 88 little 4" blanks of steel will yield us 2600 reeds. That's rock bottom minimum. As some of our models have more than two notes of the same pitch (each note has 2 reeds) then more realistically we'd be needing maybe 100 planks = 3000 reeds.
????? Are your reeds stainless steel??? or just tool steel. How do you deal with rust if not stainless ??Our reeds are spring steel (not stainless, not tool steel). We don't deal with rust because rust isn't an issue unless one plays constantly in extremely humid conditions (like on a boat on log ocean voyages) in which case you can get concertinas with stainless steel, brass or phosphor bronze reeds (which are very rare). In my 30 years of making and repairing accordions an concertinas I've come across only 2 cases of rusty reeds, and both were due to the boxes being submerged in a basement flood and left to moulder for weeks.