Haas SL15 CNC Lathe

Haas SL15 CNC Lathe

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Category : Haas Haas Turn

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Today I got to train someone on a Haas SL15 Lathe, it had live tooling and a sub spindle.

Haas SL15

It also had a bar-feed.

Not worked on one of these for a while. Tell me why on earth don’t other companies look at the pragmatic approach that Haas take to CNC Machining and copy it?

Say what you like about Haas machines but they have an incredible knack of shattering the bullshit and making stuff easy.

Here are two massive ones.

G112

G112 tricks the Haas SL15 CNC Lathe into thinking it’s a machining centre and that it can mill.

It’s like gender identity for CNC Machines. But, and this is the “for fuck sake bit”, on most machines you have to program it like a machining centre but then when your done you need to double X and switch all the Y’s for C’s.

Sounds simple but in practice it’s a shit storm, specially when programming G2 and G3.

Here is an article about it.

When Mr Haas invented the Haas SL15 CNC Lathe he must have looked at this and laughed. Here is a really clever idea. We’ll trick the machine into thinking it’s a machining centre and here is the clever bit. We’ll keep up the facade.

So you make a milling program (XY) and then……. you leave it that way. How incredibly clever is that?? Mmmmmm

Haas SL15 it Gets Better

Sub spindle, to program a sub spindle you have to stand on your head and think of a number, twist your bollocks through 90 degrees, say 47 “Hail Mary’s” and then divide by the number you first thought of.

No Sunny Jim not on this Haas SL15 CNC Lathe it’s got this nifty little G code tucked right up it’s computer numerically controlled sleeve.

G14 causes the sub spindle to become the main spindle. So now all the main spindle commands work on the sub spindle.

M03, M04, M05, M12and M19 work on the sub spindle. Please note if you use sub spindle commands like M143, M144, M145, and M119 you will get an alarm.

G14 is cancelled by G15, M30, at the end of a program, or when you press [RESET] .

Oh and just as a bonus it will mirror your Z axis. Confusing you say. NO no no it’s the opposite. Now you just program everything like it was meant to be on the main spindle and holy fuckin son of a bitch dog shit it works.

Right no more swearing David . “Grow up”

Tight Fit

There is a stored stroke around the sub spindle of thisĀ  Haas SL15.

A stored stroke is where you denote a protected area and the machine can’t enter it. A bit like my wife’s bathroom I’m not allowed to enter and especially not allowed to shit in her toilet.

Unfortunately you could still smack into the chuck if the jaws were much longer than about 20mm. Anyway it’s still a good effort to protect it.

Tool Measurement Arm

The tool measurement arm on this Haas SL15 is not much use on longer tools so you have to use the Z measure button. For this to work you need to first change setting 64.

When this is off the [Z FACE MEASURE] key will input current MACHINE position. Switch it on to record the position using the G54. You must then switch it off again because it will effect the tool measurement arm.

Bit complicated, come on Haas you can do this don’t let me down.

Haas SL15

 

Bar-feed Haas SL15

This bar-feed is really good and dead easy to use. First of all you reference it. Zero return single position V axis.

There we hit on a problem, our barfed had been disabled whist moving the machine.

Quick visit to parameter 7381504 (V BIT SWA) disable should be 0.

Job done.

Anyway all you do is issue G105 Q4 in MDI (make sure chuck is closed. it will load the bar and push it towards the spindle.

After this the hand wheel will work for the V axis. Feed this out and close the chuck making sure it’s flush with the front of the collet. Keep pushing it back to make sure it’s touching the pusher.

Once this is done run G105 Q2 this will push bar out to its correct place. You can now set your G54 to front face.

Every time you run just G105 it will push the bar out. How easy is that

Bar Information Haas SL15

The bar information is on the: HAAS SERVO BAR SYSTEM VARIABLES page.

Part length Initial Push length and Minimum clamping length can be set using I J and K in program.

3100: Is the length of your part plus the amount you will part off, this allows the bar-feeder to calculate the remaining bar length.

3101: This is how far the part will stick out from the chuck or collet face

3102: This is to make sure that the chuck or collet is holding on enough bar when you get to the end of the bar.

3103 3104 3105 set any one of these three.

3106 3107 3108 will be set by the machine as it runs.

Haas even wrote you a shopping list on the bar-feed. (There is a list of G105 and all it does)

USB Mmmm The Luxury

This machine also had a retro fitted USB in the floppy disc slot.

Not used one of these before. Very easy, from program list screen cursor down to the program to save, type in a name and press F2 to call one in type in number you want to read then press F3

Oh yea and if anyone ever tells you it doesn’t matter how big it is, well they are wrong.

Sometimes if it’s too big it just wont work. Make sure to use a small capacity memory stick as this is old technology.

Haas SL15
M7 (Never Heard Of That)

This machine had a handy M7 function which takes X and Z to tool-change position. Don’t think this is Haas but none the less. It’s bloody useful just takes you to tool change position.

 

Haas SL15

This Haas CNC SL15 is a great machine, you can pick one up second hand for about the same price as a decent second hand family car.

I suggest you leave the Mrs watching the telly and the kids in their rooms, doing whatever it is kids do for hours locked in their rooms. You then go and buy one of these, get 3 phase in your shed and have some fun.

Who knows you might even make some cash.

The bar-feed is a dream compared to most I’ve worked on. Oh and it’s an old machine, bet new one is even better.

You’ll need a long shed if you want a bar-feed or just poke it through the fence and hope the neighbours never notice. Mine just thought it was a long branch on my apple tree.

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David: 07834 858 407

 

 

 


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