[jake hoback]

OK guys so Im trying to figure out how to set up my new tappmatic on the tormach with SprutCam. anyone tell me how to x my reverse feed by 1.75?

Any advice in general on this would be great. Google has let me down in my search for answers on a self reversing tapping head with Sput.

[jake hoback]

from looking it over, seems like I need to use "Drilling with chip removing cycle " I have seen with a TC tapping head that some guys dwell for .3 sec? is it the same for a tappmatic?

[Steve Seebold]

OK guys so Im trying to figure out how to set up my new tappmatic on the tormach with SprutCam. anyone tell me how to x my reverse feed by 1.75?

Any advice in general on this would be great. Google has let me down in my search for answers on a self reversing tapping head with Sput.

I have a Tapmatic X30 and a V50 and I use something like this:

S1000M3
G0X?Y?Z.25
G1Z-?F31.25 (assuming you're cutting a 10-32 thread at 1,000 RPM
Z.25F54.6875 (THE RETRACTION IS 1.75 TIMES THE ENTRY RATE)
MOVE TO NEXT HOLE
PASTE THE 2 LINES ABOVE HERE
AND SO ON
Works well for me every time.

[jake hoback]

Hay Steve,
Thanks for the info man, unfortunately I have many many holes in each op for tapping. Off hand the next plate I do of knives will have 126 4-40 tapped holes in it. Im hoping to have Sprutcam do it for me if at all possible.

I have a Tapmatic X30 and a V50 and I use something like this:

S1000M3
G0X?Y?Z.25
G1Z-?F31.25 (assuming you're cutting a 10-32 thread at 1,000 RPM
Z.25F54.6875 (THE RETRACTION IS 1.75 TIMES THE ENTRY RATE)
MOVE TO NEXT HOLE
PASTE THE 2 LINES ABOVE HERE
AND SO ON
Works well for me every time.

[Don Clement]

Thanks for the info man, unfortunately I have many many holes in each op for tapping. Off hand the next plate I do of knives will have 126 4-40 tapped holes in it. Im hoping to have Sprutcam do it for me if at all possible.

I also use a similar reversing tapping head (Procunier) to tap hundreds of blind 4-40 holes in each of my products. As Steve has showed a few lines of G-code can easily do the job. I might use SprutCam to find the X-Y location of the holes from the solid model and then insert the few lines of G-code. For me just G-coding is the easiest way in the case of a reversing tapping head.

Don

[FuriousGeorge]

Hey Jake,

I'm not familiar with SprutCam, but this tells you how to change the reverse the feed by a given percentage and should give you some ideas:

Tension/Compression Tapping and SprutCAM « Milling Around

I use a Tapmatic a lot for 2-56 holes, so here is my general advice. I always use a dab of A1 cutting fluid on the holes, it makes a BIG difference. Make sure you use it or something similar. For the tapping operation I usually run the down-feed at about 5-10% of the calculated feed rate for a given RPM. For the reverse feed I increase it by about 5 to 10% of the calculated feed rate. Since you're not cutting anything, you can also run it at a higher RPM, although, if you're tapping aluminum you should be running near the tapmatic's maximum speed rating for a 4-40 hole to begin with.

I would also do a few test holes before you tackle your fixture plate; the spring on my (old hand-me-down) tapmatic tends to pull the tap down a by 5-25 thou more than the Z depth you have programmed. Shouldn't give you problems for thru-holes, but I've broken taps doing blind holes because of this.

Good luck!

[Don Clement]

With the Procunier I feed at 100%, retract at x2 feed, no dwell. The Procunier stops within 1/3 rev, perfect for my 4-40 blind holes.

Don

[MichaelHenry]

With the Procunier I feed at 100%, retract at x2 feed, no dwell. The Procunier stops within 1/3 rev, perfect for my 4-40 blind holes.

Don

Don - what happens if you retract at 1x feed? It seems to me that should work fine (other than a slight reduction in efficiency) but I haven't actually tried it so maybe I'm missing something.

Mike

[Don Clement]

Don - what happens if you retract at 1x feed? It seems to me that should work fine (other than a slight reduction in efficiency) but I haven't actually tried it so maybe I'm missing something.

Mike

The Procunier is geared to retract at twice the downfeed. So I retract at 200% the downfeed. The Procunier with 100% downfeed, retract at twice the downfeed, and no dwell has worked extremely well for me in tapping 10s of thousands of blind 4-40 holes on my Tormach.

Don

[MichaelHenry]

The Procunier is geared to retract at twice the downfeed. So I retract at 200% the downfeed. The Procunier with 100% downfeed, retract at twice the downfeed, and no dwell has worked extremely well for me in tapping 10s of thousands of blind 4-40 holes on my Tormach.

Don

OK, I was just curious about what would happen if you retract at the same speed the tap was fed at. It seems to me that the tap will back out quickly, which will break contact with the clutch until the retract catches up. The clutch then re-engages for a few turns and the cycle repeats until the tap is out of the hole.

If that's true, the standard tap cycle can be used in SprutCAM which is easier to program for those of us that have a lot of different short run jobs.

Mike

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I find clutch engagement when reversing to be the most stressful time for the tap, and when it is most likely to break. I would not recommend using a cycle that increases the number of clutch engagements per hole.

Regards,
Ray L.

[Steve Seebold]

OK, I was just curious about what would happen if you retract at the same speed the tap was fed at. It seems to me that the tap will back out quickly, which will break contact with the clutch until the retract catches up. The clutch then re-engages for a few turns and the cycle repeats until the tap is out of the hole.

If that's true, the standard tap cycle can be used in SprutCAM which is easier to program for those of us that have a lot of different short run jobs.

Mike

You could probably break a tap, or pull your part out of your vise, or strip the gears in your tapper. Who knows, maybe nothing will happen. Are you willing to take that chance? What's more valuable, a little bit of your time, or the possibility of having to replace your tapper? I'd go with the tapper and do a little Gcoding.

[jake hoback]

Still no word from Sprut yet. ill keep yall updated on what i find. i really dont want to have to hand edit my gcode, thats why I paid $1700 for CAM.

[Don Clement]

Still no word from Sprut yet. ill keep yall updated on what i find. i really dont want to have to hand edit my gcode, thats why I paid $1700 for CAM.

At least you didn't put out $10K+ for MasterCAM that does exactly the same thing as SprutCAM. My G-code for tapping 4-40 blind holes with the Procunier is only three lines. For me its way more work and way slower to get SprutCAM to do such a simple task than write the three lines of G-code by hand.

Don

[Steve Seebold]

You're right Don, it's way too easy to add a couple of lines than it is to wait for SprutCam to come up with a solution.

I use a high end Cam software and it won't retract at a higher feed rate either. You said SprutCam is $1,700.00! My GibbsCam was $18,000.00

[wwendorf]

I have attached a screenshot that should let you do what you are asking for. I choose a strategy of simple drilling, and then on the speeds and feeds page I changed the retract feed to 200% of work feed.

I have NOT tested this, but I believe it will give you code you were looking for.

Wade

[MichaelHenry]

You could probably break a tap, or pull your part out of your vise, or strip the gears in your tapper. Who knows, maybe nothing will happen. Are you willing to take that chance? What's more valuable, a little bit of your time, or the possibility of having to replace your tapper? I'd go with the tapper and do a little Gcoding.

I'd be pretty surprised if the tapping head was damaged - a broken tap or mangled threads seems more likely. I've been surprised before, though.

Mike

[wwendorf]

Ok, I'm pretty sure I figured it out in SprutCam how to do this. I agree, I don't like to hand edit if I have a bunch of holes to do.

I was able to get sprut to generate this gcode:
(10-24 tap)
N50 S700 M3 M8
N60 G0 G94 X0.25 Y-0.25 Z0.3937 A0.
N70 Z0.0394
N80 G1 Z-0.375 F5
N90 Z0.3937 F10 M5
N100 S700 M3
N110 M5 M9
N120 M998
N130 M3

I choose a Bore 5 strategy, and changed the RETURN feed/speed to 200%, NOT the retract feed. I also choose the "longhand" format.

I chose a feed speed of 5 and I was able to get it to automatically output 10 as the return feed.

Hope this helps.

Wade

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Ok, I'm pretty sure I figured it out in SprutCam how to do this. I agree, I don't like to hand edit if I have a bunch of holes to do.

I was able to get sprut to generate this gcode:
(10-24 tap)
N50 S700 M3 M8
N60 G0 G94 X0.25 Y-0.25 Z0.3937 A0.
N70 Z0.0394
N80 G1 Z-0.375 F5
N90 Z0.3937 F10 M5
N100 S700 M3
N110 M5 M9
N120 M998
N130 M3

I choose a Bore 5 strategy, and changed the RETURN feed/speed to 200%, NOT the retract feed. I also choose the "longhand" format.

I chose a feed speed of 5 and I was able to get it to automatically output 10 as the return feed.

Hope this helps.

Wade

I would strongly recommend NOT running that code....

The line that does the retract: "N90 Z0.3937 F10 M5" will turn the spindle OFF (M5), THEN do the retract (G1). M5 will ALWAYS be executed before any motion command (G0-G3).

Regards,
Ray L.

[wwendorf]

Nutz. Yep, you are right. Thought I had it there. Got to be a way to do it.

The code I generate would work if you opened it in a text editor and did a global search/replace on F10 M5 and replaced it with just F10.

At least then the cam program would generate it and you could manually modify it quickly instead of hand pasting in code.

Wade