Hitachi Seiki made some amazing machines many of them are still around. Read about one that I recently trained on and the typos in the manual.
I have pondered for a while about writing this article because what triggered it was a miss print. Actually I don’t know what you call it. Maybe a translation error. If you read to the end you’ll see why.
This article is purely frivolous so if you are seeking CNC Programming knowledge there’s not much. (Except for the bit about the Hitachi Seiki machines)
Read one of my other articles which are crammed with useful programming tips and information.
Are You a Self Taught at CNC Programming?
It is very common now a days to be self taught in CNC Programming. I don’t have a problem with this because really I fall into the same category.
The problem seems to be with some people is that once they get everything running enough to satisfy the boss they stop learning and look no further.
The thing with me is that while my contemporaries were reading the Daily Mail reinforcing their racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic views, I spent my time reading the boring shitty old manuals.
This in turn gave me knowledge that I could use in later life to charge people much inflated prices for CNC Training.
These manuals really were absolute dog shite in terms of the way they were written.
I mean they were full of mistakes and misspelt words and even the smallest thing took ages to understand. Fuck knows why I persevered and learnt, but I did.
Remember there was no YouTube no TicTok not even an Internet. Platform shoes were mandatory even the mullet hadn’t been invented yet.
I still do it to this day, read manuals that is.
Do what?
I just love Machine Manuals, my house is full of them. In the fridge, behind the cooker in the toilet, stuffed up the drainpipes.
My wife told me off for using my mobile phone whilst sat on the toilet. Anyway I have stopped that and now I take machine manuals into the toilet not a mobile phone.
Being made of very thin paper means you can wipe your arse on the health and safety bits at the front of the manual should you run out of lavatory paper. You certainly can’t do that with a mobile phone can you now?
As a young boy my grandmother taught me a valuable lesson when it comes to toilet hygiene and protocol.
“Grandma” I said “I don’t think you washed your hands after going to the toilet”
“David” she replied indignantly “your grandma does not get her hands dirty when she uses the toilet”
My grandmother forever the pragmatist.
Back to Manuals
I often say to my customers, as they are throwing me out “I just read the boring shit in the manuals that you can’t be arsed to read”
Obviously I’m not going to encourage you to read the manuals as I may never work again. No, no you carry on the way you are.
Rolls Royce 1971
I remember in the 1970’s I got my first motorcycle a Honda CB 160. I loved that bike but managed to crash it and write it off within a couple of months of buying it.
I think it was the only time in my life I ever saved money.
Sixty five pounds and eight shillings I saved. This represented months and months of mowing lawns, selling petrol and babysitting as well as looking after tropical fish whilst the owners were on holiday.
Oh and if I had time left I delivered green fruit with Rod the green fruit man. I also tried some male prostitution which I was no good at on account of me being an ugly bastard and I was way too shy ever approach anyone.
Anyway this money meant I could put a deposit down on the beast below.
Courtesy of Angus Dykman.
Honda CB 160 this very kind guy Angus Dykman allowed me to use his picture. Please visit his website (click picture above) he has loads of interesting motor cycles.
Couldn’t you just lick this picture? So nice. And feel free to lick your laptop.
Let me start by telling you I am one of those rare men who admits to being a shit driver.
At the time I was serving my apprenticeship at Rolls Royce and all my mates had British bikes like Triumph’s, BSA’s and Norton’s.
They took the piss out of me quite a lot for having a Japanese motor cycle, calling it a “Sewing Machine” and “a piece of Japanese shite”.
Political correctness had not been invented so “sewing machine” was a common place word. None of us were very articulate and our vocabularies were minimalistic. We had all learnt to swear but were not too good at filling in the gaps in between the expletives.
Also bear in mind we hadn’t long beaten the Japanese in a world war so I think we were allowed to say nasty stuff about them. At least for a while anyway.
Every night after finishing work all the apprentices would descend on the car-park where our prize machines were situated. Most of theirs would have a pool of oil big enough to threaten local wildlife. Oh and did I mention the kick start.
The kick start for my younger readers was a lever you pushed down with your foot. This turned over the engine and hopefully it burst into life.
Should your engine backfire the lever would kick back and could catapult the rider through the nearest plate glass window. The lucky ones got away with a broken ankle which once plastered up could be fully functional again in six months.
Now my bike had electric start this was a button, no kicking involved. Oh and the crank case was cut horizontally making oil leaks a thing of the past.
From where our motorcycles were parked to the end of the car park drive was about half a mile.
We usually raced one another to the end of this drive. This was a race I did not need to win because most of them couldn’t stop when they got to the end. This was due to their ancient braking systems not being able to cope in a drag race.
NOTE
For my younger readers a drag race has nothing to do with men dressing in women’s clothes and donning makeup and wigs.
As much as I like men dressed in women’s clothes and wearing makeup and wigs, in those days it was a race between cars on a flat track competing to run a quarter of a mile in the fastest time.
My Honda CB 160 hosted what was known as “twin leading shoe front brakes” which meant it could stop quickly. I mean not by todays standards but it certainly didn’t mean I would end up in a blithering heap of crap on the main road in front of the Rolls Royce car park.
The truth was this was the beginning of the end of the golden age of British Motorcycles. Years of underinvestment meant they were easy to catch up and overtake.
The Japanese perfected the many British innovations that never really took off.
Overhead camshaft.
Shaft drive.
Engine integral with the frame.
Electric start.
Platform shoes and flared trousers.
Sushi
It’s ironic to think that in later years Triumph motorcycle were reborn and probably copied the Japanese motorcycles and improved on them.
Anyway the only reason why I mentioned my Honda CB160 was that it had some hilarious misspelt words in the workshop manual.
Always eat healthy kids
Sorry my mind is a bit random today.
Hitachi Seiki CNC Programming
I’ll get to the point in a minute, but anyway I got to train my victims on one of these very recently.
What a pleasure it was these machines were awesome when they came out, I’m guessing early 90’s. I had the pleasure of training on them then and now years later they come around again.
The tool changer is amazing. You have a turret as usual but round the back there are loads more tools (12 I think). What a pleasant surprise!
It is a bit complicated to do a tool change. All tools are numbered so you have a table that tells you where each one is.
The tool change command is a six digit number. The first two are what turret station you want it in. The second two are the number of the tool you want. The last two are the offset.
T012300
This would get tool 23 and put it in station one in the turret.
These Hitachi Seiki machines were bloody expensive in the nineties but anyone with the bollocks and the cash to buy one would have made some serious parts.
This control was I think Hitach Seiki’s own called “Secos”. It was and still is a pleasure to use.
Easy program copy
Very easy cut copy and paste.
Poor graphics but better than most.
Decent size memory, in it’s day.
Ability to create programme templates and use them when creating new code.
Ability to use both sides of a grooving tool (width stored in offsets) no double offsets needed here. Just an H storing the width.
The Manual The Manual What about the Manual
I have been called childish by a lot of my readers and I’m afraid it’s true, I’m also about to confirm it so off you go if you don’t like it.
Now if you have got this far reading this article, you’re either having a really boring day or just as childish as me.
For any young person reading, your mum was wrong when she said “It’s not clever to swear”
It actually is clever to swear and also can be really very funny.
Anyway this is what I fell upon whilst reading the Hitachi Seiki manuals.
Read on it gets better.
Nothing prepared me for this. My mouth fell open at this next one.
This Is Not a Joke, Contains foul Language and Tigers
Warning if you don’t want to know what the “C” word is STOP HERE.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah.
This really was and is in the Hitachi Seiki manual. It is also proof that no one ever reads the manuals. One of these manuals probably contains the third secret of Fátima and there’s only me reading them. (Thick readers may have to google that one), go on no one is checking your search history.
Heidenhain Program Restart. Now you must have heard me banging on about program restart on certain machine controls.
On some it’s just non existent the best you can do is move to a tool change and start there. Oh and pray to any god you may believe in.
On a Fanuc control program restart it’s a rare option, and no fucker knows how to use it anyway, except me so click on this link.
Work Around
Without it, if you really know what you are doing you can restart programs.
This said you must have a real good knowledge of programming and modal G Codes.
What you can do is read the tool change line (M6 T06) then let the machine read the G43 line to take in the tool offset. Now you can then go on to read the canned cycle. From this point you can move on to any position and it will carry on (allegedly).
This is Fuckin dodgy. It’s a bit like having cataract surgery whilst driving a Sherman tank. You definitely need to be over 21 and not of a nervous disposition.
Chimpanzee baby
Anyway it does work, honestly, just be sure there is a full moon and you turn the control panel to face Mecca.
Joking aside make sure you understand the modal information on your control panel which you should do anyway.
What’s Modal Information?
Well it’s that screen you’ve been ignoring for years.
Please take your time and have rapid at minus 1000,000%. Be in single block and read this.
Remember if you crash this beast I will say I never met you and I definitely didn’t write this article, which will suddenly disappear into the ether at the slightest sniff of a lawsuit.
You know that screen you cant even be arsed to look at?
Well actually it contains some very useful shit so pay attention you naughty boy.
So this means you know and understand the following.
Is the machine in absolute or incremental?
What work offset is active?
Is the tool offset active and if so which one?
Is the machine still in compensation G41 G42?
Is the plane selection correct, usually XY G17?
Is the machine in feed per rev or feed per minute?
What speeds and feeds are active?
Is the machine in rapid or feed G0 or G1?
By the way if you come to me for some training I can impart all this knowledge on you.
Good Luck With That One
Anyway the other day I was let lose on this beast. So I’m going to show you the Heidenhain Program Restart on a Heidenhain iTNC 530 control.
Yes it’s a big bastard but a handsome beast at that. It’s a Hartford gantry type machine. The tool changer is no longer used but in it’s present home it’s not needed. It’s main use is drilling hole patterns and a few slots.
BT50 taper with through spindle coolant. Oh yea and it has a touch probe which I haven’t quite got working yet.
There were no manuals with this machine so it does make some of the training difficult mainly knowing what the M codes are. Not wishing to brag but my 40 years of training knowledge is not without it’s advantages. Well 10 years if you discount the 30 years when I was permanently pissed.
M codes really are a bastard because they are different on all machines that’s why my M code list is only short. You really need the machine tool manual because only a handful of them are generic.
The Machine The Machine
This machine has huge capacity and has enough power to machine flats and drill holes in rocking horse shit.
The control is a Heidenhain iTNC 530, fantastic control. Easy to program, easy to set, editing is a dream. Oh and the Heidenhain Program Restart feature is brilliant.
Graphics… Oh No
Oh but one thing, as usual graphics are dogship poor. Don’t get me wrong always use them because it will save time. It will also spot any daft mistakes but…. they are as jerky as a Charley Chaplin movie and about as clear
They wont spot collisions and only the largest of position errors will be noticeable. So unless the tool is actually poking you in the knackers you wont spot a positional error.
Anyway they are crap but most of the others are crappier (is that a word?). So you can take some solace from that.
This Is True
I couldn’t possibly name names on this one. This guy who was a machine tool sales representative once said to me.
Well, I said to him first of all “my customer is not happy with your service department says theyre shit” to which he answered “I know I don’t blame him it’s true, but everyone else is even worse”.
What a fuckin sales pitch that is!
“Oh hi errrm.. all our products are shit but be careful because everyone elses are even worse”
Sorry I Went Off On One Again
Forget Graphics. Lets talk about what is awesome, fuckin awesome.
Yes you guessed, the program restart is good well actually it’s very very good. I only used the word awesome to try and fool the reader into thinking I’m much younger than I am by using the dialect of the younger generation.
Let’s talk about Heidenhain Program Restart.
Heidenhain Program Restart, Piss Easy
I mean I know you are thinking that at my age taking a piss is not always easy but I don’t want to bore my readers with details of that.
In any case the comment was not meant to be taken literally so just back off.
Here is how you do Heidenhain Program Restart
Go into full run mode or single.
Press GOTO and input 0 then press enter.
Press softkey BLOCK SCAN
On the next screen that appears you can press the soft key LAST or you can input the line where you want to start. This is about to restore at block 35 but you can input anything.
Press cycle start
On the next screen press the softkey Restore Position.
Press CYCLE START and the machine will turn on the spindle etc at the correct speed and restore M codes.
Each time you press cycle start the machine will return one axis to the correct position. You can also select the order if you want from the soft keys.
Now when you press CYCLE START the program will resume.
Told you it was easy, you’ll love it.
Here is a live training video that demonstrates it.
I love it and I hope you do too. If you need training on a Heidenhain control then contact me.
I am always amazed that so many companies still don’t use G10 in their CNC programs. If you know you know.
I must admit I fuckin hate a lot of the things that young people say like “can I get a Latte”. (Get behind this fuckin counter and make it yoursef if you want to “get it”).
Anyway I kind of like “If you know you know”
No G10… Is this you?
I am sure you have your reasons which I will accept. But if your reason is that you don’t understand it then that’s just not good enough.
So you make a part, it’s all setup and you need to break it down.
If you can fix the work holding in such a way that you can reload it in exactly the same place then you need G10.
Let me explain, watch this video to see how single point location works.
G10 No need to spend loads of money.
You could just bolt a sub plate to your machine table so that vices and chucks etc can have dowels to locate them.
But the main idea is that you can relocate your work holding in exactly the same place every time.
Using G10 on a Fanuc Type Control
This is your work offset page on a Fanuc control.
These figures are written in by hand or by automatic setting.
If you had written this line in your program.
G90 G10 L2 P1 X-440.500 Y-265.200 Z-443.00
They would have been written in automatically when you ran the program.
So the work offset page could have any values in G54 but as soon as you run your program this G10 command will replace them with its preset values.
Make Sure Your in Absolute
Try not to forget the G90 (Absolute) because you may accidentally be in G91 (Incremental). What would then happen is it would add these numbers to what is already in the work offset. Oh dear me.
In G90 it will always replace them.
You can write to G54 G55 G56 G57 G58 or G59 just by changing the P number.
G90 G10 L2 P1 X-140.600 Y-265.923 Z-400.00 (G54)
G90 G10 L2 P2 X-125.500 Y-236.865 Z-313.865 (G55)
G90 G10 L2 P3 X-800.500 Y-563.200 Z-125.00 (G56)
G90 G10 L2 P4 X-440.500 Y-265.200 Z-169.369 (G57)
G90 G10 L2 P5 X-440.500 Y-265.200 Z-123.568 (G58)
G90 G10 L2 P6 X-410.500 Y-235.200 Z-443.00 (G59)
The code above would setup all six work offsets.
What about the L2 you ask?
What’s that for?
L2 means you are writing to the work offsets (G54- G59)
But you can also write to the tool length offsets in which case it would be
G10 L10 P1 R200. (200 length into tool 1)
G10 L12 P1 R10.(10mm radius into tool 1)
WARNING THIS IS NOT THE SAME ON ALL FANUC CONTROLS
Look David, I Have Shit Loads of Offsets
Don’t need your stupid G10.
Now I know some of us do have more offsets than you can shake a cheap memory stick at, but……..
With G10 it’s fixed in program so if some daft bastard alters your precious work offset you don’t give a flying monkey’s shit. Your program just reloads it.
Conclusion
G10 means your datum positions are saved with your CNC program.
The vice or fixture needs to be in exactly the same place when you next set it up.
You can use special single point location fixturing or just make a sub plate.
Edgecam Part Modeler is once part of the Edgecam suite of programmes. You can create solid models very easily with Edgecam Part Modeler from simple line drawings.
You can move straight into Edgecam from Edgecam Part Modeler and start machining your component.
The brilliant thing is that through associativity you can alter the model and Edgecam will immediately know that you altered it in Part Modeler.
The video below is about how you can build assemblies. This could be something like a fixture with all its bolts and clamps.
This could be one complete assembly and you could move it around and do all sorts of things to it as a single unit.
You can also have sub-assemblies which are assemblies inside assemblies.
Edgecam Tutorial Assemblies and Filters
The great thing is that if, for example, you make a clamp, a bolt and a nut as a single assembly, when you get into Edgecam and you need to move them over a bit you can easily move them in one go as a single unit.
All you would have to worry about is filling in the hole you left behind and creating a new one in the new position.
It’s really easy to drag and drop bits or full assemblies around. That means you can take a part and move it into a different assembly very easily.
All CAD system will have a form of assemblies they just may work a little different to Edgecam Part modeller.
Filters
This is how you get the various items in your assembly to be displayed on the screen. It’s like each bit has its own light switch so you can see everything or just a single nut.
It’s like stripping your engine down and just seeing the crankshaft without getting oil on your mothers carpet.
In Edgecam Part Modeler you just set up a load of filters, give them meaningful names like whatsit and thingummy.