Sponsorships from Haas/CNC Questions

[josh.pruim]

I have been tasked by my school to research and decide on a CNC machine for our engineering class. My teacher wants to get the Haas VF-2TR, and was wondering if there was any type of sponsorship that they have for school/team combinations (The CNC would be used by the engineering class, along with being used by the robotics team.) Does anyone know what types of sponsorships Haas does if any?

On a side note, I was wondering what types of coolants people have used/recommend. I was told that Blaser Blasocut 4000 is what I should look at, and I was wondering what types of coolant would be best for it. The machine will not be used daily, and will sit unused for up to 3 months at a time. I have heard in some places that an aquarium bubbler in the coolant tank keeps the coolant from smelling bad, is this true as well?

[Cory]

What on earth are you going to use a 5 axis mill for?

That would be a huge mistake for FRC or even general classroom use, particularly as the VF-2TR is not very versatile and is only good for small parts. Not to mention that you could get 3 mini mills for the cost of the base model, or two VF-3's

I believe Haas offers schools a 10% or so discount.

We use Blaser 2000 Universal. It is what Blaser recommends for aluminum. If you keep it clean and run some air through it, it will keep pretty well.

[josh.pruim]

I do notice that the VF-3 has a 4-Axis configuration, which may be a better option (Is a 4th axis worth it, or is it just a fun toy? Also, is it a 4th axis TABLE, or is it just the drive and controls for a table to be installed there?)

The VF-3 has 1MB of program memory, is this enough for most runs? What does 1MB of program memory look like? (I just don't want to get a 1MB memory unit then later find out that it's not enough for some projects)

And lastly, what's the chip removal procedure for a CNC like that? (It doesn't have an automatic chip removal by the looks of it.)

(These are all configurable options, so I was wondering if they should be added or not)

Then for the coolant

How should we order it? I know they sell 55 gallon drums and 5 gallon buckets.

What's the procedure for dilution? Is the coolant sold in 100% strength, then needs to be diluted to 10%?

Does the coolant tank need to stay above a certain level, or can we just dump 30 gallons in there and simply keep it above 15-20 gallons (55 gallons of coolant is a lot)? (If my memory serves me correctly, a CNC coolant is fed by a pump at the bottom of the reservoir)

[Cory]

If you don't have an existing use for a 4th axis there's not much of a reason to buy one. We bought one and it was a waste of money. We haven't used it once.

The option is for drive and wiring. You need to buy a rotary table in addition to that. All told it's roughly an extra $10k for both the option and the table.

You can get a chip auger/conveyor. That's a $2500-5000 option. Otherwise you scoop them out by hand.

Coolant is a concentrated oil that you mix with water to the proper percentage. You can't really run it effectively if it's half full or less as a fairly large quantity of coolant will collect inside the enclosure and then slowly drain back into the tank. If you only had 25 gallons to start with you'd be pumping air and coolant, which is bad.

1 MB of memory is fine but you will have to delete programs from memory eventually. I have 76 programs on a flash drive right now that are taking up almost exactly 1 MB. So you'd never need to have more than 1 MB of memory to run a program unless you actually were doing serious 3d contouring.

I don't want to sound rude but it sounds like you guys don't know enough about CNC or what your needs are to properly select and option out a machine. All the fancy options in the world won't do any good if you don't know how to use them or have a need for them.