Hey Manike!!!!!

[manike]

Footemps,

It's all designed and NC programmed apart from the modules, which I just haven't found time to finish

The grip frame (or at least one for John) has been cut, and so has the body. As far as I am aware they haven't been able to cut the battery pack yet, too busy making C&C's for you guys .

manike

[steveg]

Steve, there is a lot more in the value of something that just the time/cost of manufacture. When someone pays millions of dollars for a painting are they just paying for the time it took and the cost of the canvas and paint? Nope, they are paying for the design and work and exclusivity.

manike I both agree and disagree with you, from the art perspective yes, from the manufactured product perspective no.

It costs millions to set up a toothpaste manufacturing plant yet a tube of toothpaste only costs a few dollars.

Like the rest of the posters here I'd love to have one of those bodies, am in a position to have one manufactured for
myself (my former employer sold perhaps 1/3 of the cnc equipment in canada,I'm now an independent), but do respect
your creativity and effort so will not do that.
SO as a work of art if you can find someone willing to give
you 20 000 good for you!


As a manufactured product it IS nothing more than time/material/labour and a few other factors like overhead
(designers,office staff etc.)profit etc.
did you know(manike i'm sure does) that most autopart manufactures work with a 1% margin

Besides I was only trying to point out that the $20000 wasn't because of the 12hrs of cnc machine time

It is programmed with HSM toolpath technologies and even then it takes a very long time to machine

Yoaaa I'm calling you on this one mr.camsoftwaresalesman I could probably run that toolpath on my sherline desktop
with stepper motors and $20cnc program. the ONLY thing that makes a machine fast, is the machine it's-self all the cam
soft-hype in the world will not cut one second faster.( I do admit that i've seen many a cam generated toolpath that
had the endmill unaccountably wandering around in the air for no good reason)

[manike]

Originally posted by steveg
It costs millions to set up a toothpaste manufacturing plant yet a tube of toothpaste only costs a few dollars.

Yes but the cost of that maufacturing facility is spread over a large number of tubes of toothpaste. The batch numbers are huge. The batch number if someone ordered one of these would be just one, and so all of those costs are covered into a single unit.

If someone only ever bought a single tube of toothpaste from that factory it would cost an absolute fortune.

Originally posted by steveg
SO as a work of art if you can find someone willing to give
you 20 000 good for you!

You miss the whole point, that I do not expect to find anyone willing to pay that and nor do I want to.

Yes maybe you could 'copy' it but it would not be exactly the same, mine would always be the original. It's always easier and quicker to copy something that has already been designed or made so it probably wouldn't cost you as much. To do the surface modelling and design work in this piece would still take a good modeller, who now doesn't need to be thikingn about it after having seen this one, a significant period of time. Unless you were doing it yourself (which you may well be able to do) it would cost.

Originally posted by steveg
As a manufactured product it IS nothing more than time/material/labour and a few other factors like overhead
(DESIGNERS,office staff etc.)profit etc.
did you know(manike i'm sure does) that most autopart manufactures work with a 1% margin

Exactly, and my time as the designer is bloody expensive It's the one resource that is limited. I don't care so much about the automanufacturers, but I think most currently are operating at a loss.

Did you miss the part about what WDP (John Rice) believe it costs them to develop such a milling design? As pointed out over a large batch of markers that cost would be spread, but not in this case.

Originally posted by steveg
Besides I was only trying to point out that the $20000 wasn't because of the 12hrs of cnc machine time

Very true (oh any by the time all components are done it's more like 20 hours on the mill) it's mainly because I don't want there to be lots of them around. And everyone kept bugging me for a price, so I gave them a price at which point I would make them a body. Same thing Top clothes designers can do and why they can command phenomenly high prices for a piece of cloth. Exclusivity.

Originally posted by steveg
Yoaaa I'm calling you on this one mr.camsoftwaresalesman I could probably run that toolpath on my sherline desktop
with stepper motors and $20cnc program.

Yes you probably could, but you would need to make gentler cuts and run it at a slower feed rate to ensure the stepper motors can keep up with the accelerations and decellerations of the toolpath.

But consider yourself called... I'll raise the stakes and see you...

Originally posted by steveg
the ONLY thing that makes a machine fast, is the machine it's-self all the cam soft-hype in the world will not cut one second faster.( I do admit that i've seen many a cam generated toolpath that
had the endmill unaccountably wandering around in the air for no good reason)

I can spot the machine tool worker who hasn't seen any of the latest upto date NC strategies and software.

I suggest reading through some of our techniques in milling which can be found at http://www.tebis.com/tebis_neu/index...en&R1=03&R2=03

The difference the software takes to machine the same component as compared to another software is phenomenal. It comes down to coding, understanding of the component (by the software) and available strategies. There are a huge range of reasons why one software will cut faster and with a better surface finish than another.

Firstly I'll do the sale pitch www.tebis.com take a look at some of that and if you are independent and want to know how you can offer your customers the ability to be almost twice as productive then give them a call in the USA and speak to Kent.

OK so the reasons. Every machine tool has abilities to accelerate and decellerate as it cuts it's path, the more decellerates and subsequent accelerations it needs to make over the course of a toolpath the longer it will take to cut. By optimising movements of the tool such that there are no sharp corners the machine tool can get up to full feed rate and stay there. This makes a drastic difference in roughing times. Also because we physical track what we are creating from our cutter paths we can highly optimised our movements around the component and understand what material is left for 3+2 axis remachining and residual roughing (as highlighted in red in the video, that I link to below). By using a large tool to remove the bulk of the material and then automatically calculateing areas to recut with a smaller tall roughing times are reducing and the resultant component is more accurately roughed to size allowing faster feed rates on semi and finish cuts, without the risk of dropping into heavy material locations. I just took about 40% out of the roughing times of components at Land Rover and Ford. That's probably one of the reasons why they just had 55 licences put onto their central licence server... If software made no differences why would they pay twice as much (as compared to our nearest most expensive comptetitor) to use our software than to use something else? In the last year LR's man count went down 15% but our new milling strategies means the number of models created by the same number of machines has gone up 30%...

Now these accelerations and decellerations also count as the tool lifts into the air for rapid movements, for machines that can move with look ahead or radial movements in rapid, that's what we do, so there is not even any sharp corners as the tool rapids, so again it does it as fast as possible without having to decellerate.

Now instead of the very conventional zig zag strategies which are poor in performing a good surface finish over complex surfaces and that require decellerations at the end of each contour, we use strategies that 'flow' around the component in such a manner that there is greatly reduced step over locations and times associated with that. Also step over movements between cutting contours are done with a radius, this is again to reduce how much the machine tool needs to decellerate. Cutting up and down near verticle walls to get a good surface finish is a bad strategy and requires slower feed rates to avoid chatter and cutter marks, we have technologies that recognise these areas automatically and use planar cutting techniques which can run much faster with a significantly improved surface finish.

Also even when we get down to the points generated for the point to point toolpath we do things to aid high speed machining. Most software put in the points within tolerance and say 'job done'. We don't, we allocate points within the tolerances over the component and then look to add points and align them over the surface shape of the component. What this does is bring together all the machine tools lead and lag conditions and accelerations over the surfaces such that they are going in the same direction. This actually allows you to run at higher feed rates and obtain great surface results.

Jobs had issues at a new customer of ours running their new high speed linear drives machines because the surface finish was not good enoough... until they started running Tebis software.

Now I'm wondering what softwares you are familiar with to be able to say it's all hype? I'd agree that most low end (and some top end) software will not make a noticeable difference, but some top end softwares (I believe we are the very top) make a HUGE difference.

Please take a look at the article here http://www.tebis.com/tebis_neu/index...01&R3=00&R4=01 and see what you think after watching the video

When showing our software on video's people constantly ask if it's speeded up. When showing in real life we draw crowds from all over.

I don't know if you just attended the recent IMTS show in Chicago? but the Deckel Maho and FTP and Fidia stands were all showing high speed roughing techniques and 5 axis finishing using our software. Oh I forgot to mention even our 5 axis paths are optimised to be smooth and with radial re orientations. It's like watching a ballet when you see a machine cut 5 axis with our software.

Another case, I just went into an aerospace compay where it was taking 60 hours to rough a very large high tensile steel under carriage component with an old droop machine. Using the same machine and same tooling but our software it now just takes 20 hours... and it's a better result

manike

[manike]

BTW, I also just attended a seminar the day before yesterday at a Time Compressions Technologies exhibition, about HSM techniques, which was stressing just how important the software is.

I wish I had some of the time saving slides to show you. It was really quite phemomenal. If I can search it out before flying to Florida I'll post it up.

manike

[steveg]

Just watched the video In terms of speed I've seen that
about 5~6 years ago In our shop. differant markets differant perspective.

My former employer carried Mori Seiki,OKK,Yasda,and at one
time Makino, all Japanese machines with Fanuc or Mitsubishi
controls

Yes my statement about software was simplistic and you did
call me on that.In the future i'll promise to stay on my
side of the wall.
My side of the wall is were the chips are made, sometimes
very fast and in huge quantities.(the latest evolution in
high speed is a chip conveyor with a machine attached)

You of course are talking about not wasting the machines time
with nonproductive moves or optimizing what an individual machine
can do,and my comment on the endmill
wandering around in the air eluded to that.

Opps got to leave now the electrician and phone company are
showing up at my new house in 1/2hr

Interesting discussion, I'm always welling to learn and even
occasionally be corrrected (assuming I admit that I'm
wrong )

[manike]

Agreed that machine tool is not the fastest but my point was more of how quickly you could make a component with a machine tool, that may not even be the fastest, by the use of good software. It's an every day machine and people can make such machines so much more productive by good software.

Originally posted by steveg
You of course are talking about not wasting the machines time
with nonproductive moves or optimizing what an individual machine
can do,and my comment on the endmill
wandering around in the air eluded to that.

Absolutely, it's all about getting the best out of the machine (and tooling for that matter). We don't waste time recutting surface or cutting air

I've made chips, now I sell people ways to make them faster

manike

[The Frymarker]

Manike,

I am dissapointed, I thought these were going into production and I would get to purchase a work of art.

Oh well, congratulations to you though, it is well derserved.

Let me know when you want to slap some funky grips on that puppy.

Heather

[Dragoon]

Wow!

I bought a CNC machine at the beginning of the year for my woodworking business and you guys just put me to shame.

I've been running it for over 6 months now and I could barely follow what you guys were taking about.

steveg, If ever your in the Toronto area and what to pick up a little extra cash, I have a simple machine that that needs some help. It just can't seem to cut as accurately as I know it should. There is some play in the movements and I'm not sure how to go about fixing it.

Manike, and chance of a demo copy of your software?
Mind you it sounds like overkill for 2D machining in Pine.

After reading this thread I feel as if I should spend a lot of time reading my skimpy manuals.

Douglas

[oldsoldier]

Um...I got 20k...wanna talk?

[manike]

sorry FryMarker in many cases even if we were to sell bodies at manufacturing cost I expect they would still be too expensive for most.

Originally posted by oldsoldier
Um...I got 20k...wanna talk?

If you're serious we can , I'll give you the bank account details, you deposit money and within a short time period (however long to get it anno'd how you want) you can have the marker

Go on call my bluff, please

manike

[manike]

Originally posted by Dragoon
Manike, and chance of a demo copy of your software?

We don't just provide demo software because to get the most out of such a package you need training. We work very closely with our potential customers to help them achieve the best results.

Originally posted by Dragoon
Mind you it sounds like overkill for 2D machining in Pine.

Understatement of the Day

manike

[oldsoldier]

If I could LIVE inside it...maybe. It's my downpayment on a house. Although you do beautiful work....I still need a place to live. Maybe next time?

[The Frymarker]

Ah well, it is a much deserved reward for yourself!

Email me if you want grips, I'm working on some new designs and new techniques of making them.....oh what fun.

Take good care Manike....enjoy

[Gecko]

pfffft that manike emag is nothing.........

(data port covers for excal)
just out of curiousity how many lines of code did that bad boy come out to be? Simon has tebis looked into getting classes set up in US Colleges? Seems like mastercam has a pretty good hold in most of the schools around here.
Gecko

[manike]

I don't know how many lines of code the manik-e-mag is. The C&C extreme is some where around 200,000 in total if I remember correctly.

I wouldn't be suprised to find the manik-e-mag to be way in excess of that, the main 3 ball finisher for just one side is over 80,000 lines of code. So after all parts are taken into account it may be up close to a million.

Someone, as he was watching the code fly through the controller, once asked John Sosta if he hand wrote the code on the C&C. John replied sure, it only took me a few minutes to do that couple of hundred thousand lines...

We do have software in some colleges where we do not charge for the software and they only pay maintenance on a yearly basis... I think even then it is more expensive than mastercam et al... Mastercam is also a good system and a great learning start.

You don't need such a high level product as ours for just teaching students, it's more for being competitive and being able to do things you just can't do with other software.

manike