Old timer at a shop in Denver told me to stop trusting the machine defaults

I was running a Haas VF-2 over in Denver back in March and this older guy walks up, been doing CNC since the 80s. He watched me set up a job and stop to check the default tool offset. He said "son, every one of those factory presets is a lie" and walked off. I ignored him for about a week until I crashed a $400 endmill because the default feed rate was way too high for the material. Now I manually recalculate every single speed and feed before I hit start, even if it adds 15 minutes to setup. Has anyone else found hidden wrong defaults in their machine's presets?

2 comments

2 Comments

benb219d ago

Gotta push back a little on this one. I've run Haas machines for years and the defaults are actually pretty decent for common materials like 6061 and 1018. The problem isn't the presets, it's that people don't know what material they're actually cutting. If you're running something weird like a stainless or a tough alloy and you just punch "go" on the factory feed, yeah you're asking for trouble. But a $400 endmill crash usually means you didn't check the toolpath or the material code before hitting cycle start. The old timer is right that you should verify, but calling every default a straight up lie is a bit much. I trust the defaults for aluminum all day long, just double check your material and tooling first.

mason4999d ago

Man, I had a buddy who learned this the hard way. He ran a job on a older Mazak, trusted the default peck cycle depth for drilling. Damn near snapped a 1/2" carbide drill clean off in some 4140 prehard. Factory had the peck set way too deep for that material, chips packed up and the machine just stalled out. Cost him a whole shift to get that broken carbide out.