Vent: Crash then run, that's how you eat $400 worth of aluminum

Last Tuesday I saw a guy on the floor next to me run a brand new part after a spindle stall and he never re-zeroed his probe. The machine was off by 0.013 and he scrapped a $400 billet before the first pass even finished. I know we all want to save time after a crash, but that offset is never what it was before. Does anyone else always re-check with a test bar even if the numbers look right?

2 comments

2 Comments

daniel2141mo ago

Why are we pretending that re-zeroing after every little hiccup is some kind of holy ritual? That guy probably checked his offsets and the numbers looked dead on. A spindle stall doesn't always move the probe, and sometimes you're just losing money because you're scared of a ghost that isn't there. I've run parts straight after a bad stall and they came out perfect, because the machine is tougher than we give it credit for. Test bars take time, and time is also money. If the dial indicator says it's good, then run it and stop crying over one scraped part.

hollyramirez1mo ago

Ha, @daniel214, you're not wrong that a spindle stall doesn't always mean the probe moved, but that's a big "if" when the whole part is riding on it. I've been in the same spot where the numbers looked fine, and yeah, sometimes I ran it and got lucky, but the one time I didn't, the scrap bin ate a whole setup. A quick test bar or a touch-off on a known surface is cheap insurance compared to re-cutting a damaged part.