5-Axis Robot Carves Metal Like Butter 277
kkleiner sends along an amazing video of what robot-controlled machining is coming to. "Industrial robots are getting precise enough that they're less like dumb machines and more like automated sculptors producing artwork. Case in point: Daishin's Seki 5-axis mill. The Japanese company celebrated its 50th anniversary last year by using this machine to carve ... a full-scale motorcycle helmet out of one piece of aluminum. No breaks, no joints, the 5-Axis mill simply pivots and rotates to carve metal at some absurd angles. Every cut is guided by sophisticated 3-D design software (Openmind’s HyperMill)."
Craves Metal (Score:5, Funny)
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I, for one, welcome our new metal sculpting overlords?
Seriously though, the video was kind of mesmerizing. And now I want a new aluminum motorcycle helmet.
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The idea of wearing a helmet made of a material hard enough to efficiently transmit blows directly to your skull, soft enough to deform under impact, ductile enough to stay deformed, and a sufficiently good conductor of heat to making cutting its deformed remains off of your head without burning you; but before you bleed out, a specialized operation makes me very nervous.
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Pretty certain that's only a showpiece helmet.
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And now I want a new aluminum motorcycle helmet.
Re:Craves Metal (Score:5, Funny)
That's exactly what They want you to think.
This represents a tremendous step forward in aluminum hat technology.
Re:Craves Metal (Score:4, Funny)
Aluminum hat technology...is that an upgrade over tin-foil hats?
Re:Craves Metal (Score:4, Informative)
Decent CNC machines tend to run anywhere from $250K to $1Million USD in new condition. Consider this is a 5-axis so going into the millions wouldn't be too surprising and also consider unless you are a master of G-Code programming you will need a software program to write the codes for you so you can tack on another $10K-$25K over a few years for the CAD/CAM Software package.
Also yes I realize there are probably "Free" programs that write G-Codes and I realize that Blender will do modeling but if I am running a machine like this I want software with real support and a reputation which means I would probably go with an AutoCAD/MasterCAM, Solidworks/MasterCAM, Solidworks/SolidCAM or CATIA package.
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They cost a lot, but can you imagine the ROI you can pull with these sorts of tools at your disposal?
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Double what it will cost in 2 years, four times what it will cost in 4 years, and ten times what it will cost in a decade.
How long you willing to wait?
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Not true at all, unless you royally fark up the machine, these machines tend to hold their value for quite a while, especially the 5-axis machines.
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Not true at all, unless you royally fark up the machine, these machines tend to hold their value for quite a while, especially the 5-axis machines.
I think what the OP was getting at is that the prices of these machines is going to drop precipitously over the next ten years. History would tend to suggest he's correct.
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Not really, the construction of these machines is pretty automated as is and 3D printing won't get to the quality point where you can make these absurdly priced machines at a reasonable cost anytime soon.
Not to mention they're expensive because the volume is pretty low but they produce a lot of work. Too many machines and you just have wasted machinery not doing anything. Not to mention a lack of resources to truly run a significantly higher amount of machines than are already run today.
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This isn't a computer, it doesn't work like that. A good mill, especially a loaded 5 axis CNC model, is not some cheap ass Taiwanese motherboard, it's an extremely expensive TOOL that one purchases (i.e. invests in) with the intent of keeping and putting to work for many years.
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And 40-50 years ago, people would have made the same statement about a motherboard being a rare piece of equipment that must be treated as a long-term investment.
I am of the firm belief that the age of mass production is on the wane. There will of course always be plenty of mass production, but I think the next couple decades will see the rise of customized production in which people can order the fabrication of very specific consumer items, limited only by their own imagination coupled with the capabilitie
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A 5 axis machine like that would run you north of $300,000.
And it's not very easy to play around with, and can get very dangerous if you mess up.
You also definetly don't want to do it for a living.
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You also definetly don't want to do it for a living.
Why not? My whole family has a machinist background. Used to own their own business too -- I worked many a summer in the machine shop doing everything from grunt work (deburring parts) to production on CNC lathes and milling machines. I would have no issues doing it for a living. There are much worse jobs out there. The only problem that I see with the machinist profession is that it's slowing being murdered by cheap overseas labor. Is that why you say that you wouldn't do it for a living or is there
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5 axis CNC milling is old news. You can pick up a good used 5 year old machine for 20-40k depending on size and capabilities. Don't forget the cost of tooling as well.
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I'd suggest cutting your teeth on something a bit more low-end before popping megabucks for anything special or any industrial-grade used equipment.
There's plenty of hobbyist designs for simple 2-axis units. Also a few "cheap" commodity ones for dremmel hobbyists -- still pretty pricey.
Or see my sig if you're feeling particularly adventurous :-)
Oh, and I mean "cut your teeth" in the figurative sense, of course.
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As niftily as it was carving it up, it almost seems to crave it... That trophy was damned cool watching the video
doing it up like that.
Not to sound overly nationalist (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't mean to take anything away from the Japanese who are clearly leading in the robotics industry. Especially with technologies like this, humanoid robots like Asimo, and even those creepy robots that have the bad latex skin, these are all really impressive displays of Japan's prowess in this field. More importantly, the control mechanisms are being refined at both the software and hardware interconnects, so this isn't just "robotics", but rather the whole field covers a much broader scope than merely software or just hardware.
Why isn't the U.S. leading in this area? Why have we decided that we're happy enough building Facebook applications? It's sad to see that we aren't as focused on building real systems that will have an actual physical impact on our surroundings. We took Laertes' ridiculous admonition "to thine own self be true" and turned ourselves and our energies into the very worst of what we are as a nation. We have become exactly what the Japanese saw 20 years ago: a nation of lazy, overpaid workers. And, I hate to say it, we are paying the price for that with our jobs.
Re:Not to sound overly nationalist (Score:4, Insightful)
By what set of criteria do you judge software to be less valuable than hardware?
Re:Not to sound overly nationalist (Score:5, Funny)
By what set of criteria do you judge software to be less valuable than hardware?
BitTorrent.
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I think it's not that the software's less valuable, per se- it's that we're worrying about things like Facebook, MySpace, etc. which aren't
really in the same category of software. The software to make the CNC multi-axis machines go is rather valuable- without the machine
it's useless, but without the software, the machine's equally worthless. I just wouldn't be putting investment effort into things like
Facebook. In fact, if Facebook went bye-bye, little of value would actually be lost. Seriously.
And, I t
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I see your mafia wars straw man, and raise you with: that cutting machine would be worthless without the software running it.
Re:Not to sound overly nationalist (Score:4, Insightful)
False. The 5-axis system would still carve metal like butter if it were manually controlled. Just more clumsily and slowly.
Whereas, frankly, Mafia Wars can never be allowed to be present on the winning side of any argument. If it means abjuring the entire history and future of accomplishments in software, it's still a small price to pay.
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Without the control system software running it that 5-Axis machine would just be a useless bridgeport. Don't forget, any good Bridgeport mill already has "5-axis" capabilities.
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Actually, these machines are probably doing "high speed machining" which can only be done when they are software controlled, i.e. it can not be done manually.
In high speed machining, the cutting speed is much higher than is intuitive. As one increases the cutting speed (from zero), the temperature of the tool increases, until it breaks. But there is a sweet spot at a much higher cutting speed where the tool actually is cooled by the cuttings it is removing.
However this sweet spot is tight and it depends on
Re:Not to sound overly nationalist (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the Germans and the Japanese that are currently at the top of the heap when it comes to CNC Machinery... However there are a lot of good American companies up there too, one of the most popular brands in the USA is HAAS, although their 5/4 Axis machines aren't very special.
It's mostly because they focused on that market and become very good at what they did. You'll see in about 20-30 years China leading that area of industry since they have such a huge focus on manufacturing.
Anyways, it's the people ultimately programming the machines and the software used to program the machines that are the real driving force behind this industry, without the software these machines would just be dumb lumps of metal.
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Indeed. However, without the hardware, the software's not much use either.
I think the point the GP poster's trying to get at is that there's much less of this stuff being showed, funded, etc. by US business and more things like Facebook which provides NOTHING of any real tangible value and has loads of money to do that nothing with.
To be sure, there's some innovation, building, etc. going on in the US- there's a renaissance about to hopefully start here (the beginnings are showing- whether it takes off, on
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I guarantee you that Haas and Bridgeport are not showing off Facebook. They do show off their machines to people who actually have the money to buy them, they dont give a shit about the Youtube crowd. But most of them don't have to show off a damn thing, because anyone who is thinking of starting a machine shop in the U.S. is already familiar with most of the options out there.
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Without the ideas there would be no software or hardware, so ultimately the value is in the people who design/run these machines.
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obligatory XKCD:
http://xkcd.com/722/ [xkcd.com]
The pattern of lights is all wrong!
Wait, the software is USA (Score:3, Informative)
So it is basically Daishin Seiki's demo of what they are capable of with a Deckel-Maho (German) machine and hyperMill (US)CAM software.
Dooh, the software is from a German company too. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.openmind-tech.com/en/the_cam_company.html [openmind-tech.com]
I'm lost as to why Daishin Seki is getting credit here, other than a poor write up on someone's blog and a cool demo.
And on a personal note, I need to get my reading comprehension checked, or check my meds...
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Not as old as the population trends.
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My point [wikimedia.org] still stands.
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It's the startup cost.
Software product companies are expensive to start, but they're nothing to companies making innovative physical objects. I used to work for a silicon startup - it was a cheap start for silicon company and it still burned through a phenomenal amount of money before it had a product. Software is just cheaper (and often quicker) to get to market.
So really blame the VCs and the addiction to short term returns in the US stock market.
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Why isn't the U.S. leading in this area?
The problem of an aging population (increasing ratio of retirees to working-age people) as been a more urgent problem for the Japanese than for the US. Robotics are of a higher interest there because they free up workers from "mundane" jobs to work in other fields. Also, many of these robots were developed to directly assist in elder care.
We have become exactly what the Japanese saw 20 years ago: a nation of lazy, overpaid workers.
That's also another piece of the puzzle. It's hard to stay competitive internationally, when [your employees demand higher/their employees are okay with lower] wages. This
It depends on what's valued in a culture (Score:2)
"Leadership" might not translate fast enough to cash in the US to look as though it's worth having. The US metric up to the last year or so, which I hope is beginning to fade, is "can we make our money back on this in a short time?" and the closure of labs like Bell and Xerox PARC reflect this bottom-line thinking. Germans and Japanese alike see nothing "better" in the challenges of design than in those of manufacturing so they have good engineers doing both, and they think longer-term. It's less difficu
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Not sure about ROW, but if you remember the recent ? That all was caused because a Chinese manufacturer stole an incomplete (or sabotaged) formula. Assume that it was just accidental. What would happen if a company suspected this would happen, and left a sabotaged formula as low-hanging-fruit? [wikipedia.org]
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Whoops. We love broken anchor tags.
Well, the link is still valid.
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US: leading in "Andriod", a mobile OS.
Japan: leading in actual android robotic research.
Re:Not to sound overly nationalist (Score:4, Informative)
I don't mean to take anything away from the Japanese who are clearly leading in the robotics industry. Especially with technologies like this, humanoid robots like Asimo, and even those creepy robots that have the bad latex skin, these are all really impressive displays of Japan's prowess in this field. More importantly, the control mechanisms are being refined at both the software and hardware interconnects, so this isn't just "robotics", but rather the whole field covers a much broader scope than merely software or just hardware.
Why isn't the U.S. leading in this area? Why have we decided that we're happy enough building Facebook applications? It's sad to see that we aren't as focused on building real systems that will have an actual physical impact on our surroundings. We took Laertes' ridiculous admonition "to thine own self be true" and turned ourselves and our energies into the very worst of what we are as a nation. We have become exactly what the Japanese saw 20 years ago: a nation of lazy, overpaid workers. And, I hate to say it, we are paying the price for that with our jobs.
I always thought that one of the goals of innovation and technology is to make life easier (physically). Just because fewer folks in the US have their own gardens for food, or chop their own wood for heat in the winter, doesn't make us more or less lazy then those in the past. Some would see it as better time management. Assuming that the person utilizing these technologies is working towards something other then gaining 1000 friends on facebook. Regardless of where it originates.
However, as tech grows, and you logically look to the future of mankind, robots and software will be able to accomplish all that mankind "works" at. Manual labor will be a thing of the past at some point. Albeit long into the future. As soon as it is cheaper to pay for a robot to do manual labor, human manual labor (brick laying, welding, construction, farming, etc..) will no longer be required. So does that mean mankind will be judged in society for only their creativity at that point or leisure skills? I don't know. But I will probably be long gone by the time that happens.
Re:Not to sound overly nationalist (Score:4, Informative)
The U.S. *IS* leading in this area. Japan is not the only country that manufacturers CNC machines. Bridgeport has been *THE* name in milling machines for decades. Haas is another big name based out of California.
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Culture.
A) Japan is looking for a way to fill there declining work force.
B) Initially fiction robots are helpful and nice in Japan. In the US they where always evil.
about 5-axis milling machines (Score:2)
The USA had these sophisticated machines for a long time (decades) though probably without the current level of software.
They were considered critical national security technology because their primary use was milling components for advanced nuclear weaponry. The specific shapes and ability to form these unusual shapes required for the physics unhindered by manufacturing constraints was considered an essential capability.
No doubt these machines illegal to export and probably restricted from commercial use.
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They most likely used windows to run the design software, but they could easily run UNIX with their own set of CAD/CAE software.
I doubt they needed any APPLE/ADOBE tools, the guys who make these machines are engineers.
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> Software comes from the US, for now at least.
I gather you're not in the software development field.
Software is spec'ed in the US and farmed out to low-cost programmers overseas. There is no new generation of programmers getting entry level software development jobs in the US. In one generation we will no longer have the ability to develop software on a large scale; Just as we no longer have the engineering infrastructure and ability to go back the Moon.
Re:Not to sound overly nationalist (Score:5, Informative)
What do you mean "they dont make anything any more"? Shows that you know NOTHING about America. Mills are one of the cornerstone tools of our *very large* manufacturing industry here in the U.S.
Re:Not to sound overly nationalist (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, this is rather silly since America still has the largest manufacturing industry in the world by a significant margin.
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Total Fertility Rates 2010:
Niger: 7.75 (top)
USA: 2.05
France: 1.98
China: 1.79
Germany: 1.41
Italy: 1.31
Japan: 1.21
Taiwan: 1.14
Hong Kong: 1.02
Macau: 0.92 (lowest)
Nice enough demo (Score:4, Informative)
It's a nice enough demo for a five-axis mill, but these are hardly new nor revolutionary in any way. These have been around for at least a decade, probably much longer.
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Indeed- but it's a very nice one, from the looks of it. I wouldn't mind having access to one of them.
Re:Nice enough demo (Score:4, Informative)
6 axis, yep count 'em six, CNC mills have been around for over 25 years, my father's company sold one with over 10 meter table that was used to cut out propellers for submarines. they had another multi-axis one (don't remember how many) that had 40 meter long bed.
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Exactly. Making fairly intricate stuff out of billet aluminum for the automotive industry has been going on for a long time.
Most of this stuff is made the same way as this demo. http://www.billetspecialties.com/subcategory.asp?cid=16 [billetspecialties.com]
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Suit of Armor (Score:3)
You could create one awesome looking suit of armor with that.
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I think he means for costume, and he is correct.
Clearly he wants to make a suit of metal armor for walking into a modern battle~
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If you aspire to be Tony Stark, yes... but AluminumMan kind of lacks that spark...
So what? (Score:2)
The Japanese company celebrated its 50th anniversary last year by using this machine to carve ... a full-scale motorcycle helmet out of one piece of aluminum. No breaks, no joints, the 5-Axis mill simply pivots and rotates to carve metal at some absurd angles.
This has been possible for a very long time. I've seen 5, 6 and even virtual axis mills decades ago that could do this. The software is easier now and the machines have improved tolerances and speeds but the basic technology has been widely used for ages. Multi-axis CNC mills are absurdly useful but not even remotely new.
In other words, nothing to see here. Moving on...
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Nothing to see here is you are familiar with the CNC world. Otherwise it's pretty bitchen'
Aluminium Motorcycle Helmet, Not Impressed. (Score:2)
I would be more impressed if it couls take a chunk of Aluminium and carve out a tinfoil hat with the same thickness as one made out of Reynoulds Aluminium foil. Then I would be impressed.
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Did you see how it carved a logo into it that had a different appearance but looked flush?
That's it carving only a tiny, tiny bit in, probably in some crosshatch pattern to get the logo to stand out.
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Not at all difficult to do with any modern mill.
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automated sculptors (Score:5, Insightful)
Industrial robots are getting precise enough that they're less like dumb machines and more like automated sculptors producing artwork
No, the engineers who built them and the programmers who programmed them are the sculptors, the robots are simply sophisticated knives. They're tools that humans use to create the sculpture.
It isn't artificial intelligence, it's real. It's the programmer's intelligence.
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Who coded the robot to determine how to machine the piece?
Sculptors used to imagine shapes and then carve that out of stone. These programmers are taking that a step further - by programming the computer to do that.
Really need open source CAM (Score:5, Informative)
I'm starting to get involved in CNC machining (hobbyist level). One of the things that is quite clear is that there are really no good open source CAM packages. For that matter, open source 3D CAD has a long way to go, although I have great hopes for FreeCAD (not ready yet, but huge progress in the past year). If someone out there is looking for a challenge, take a look at 3D CAM, starting with 3-axis milling. Toolpath planning is *hard*. Your problem: Here is an arbitrary chunk of arbitrary metal. Here is a list of arbitrarily shaped tools. Here is the work envelop of your machine. Here is a table of chiploads that won't break the tools. Here is a 3D CAD file. Produce gcode. gcode that will not break the tools, not crash into fixtures, not crash the machine, and can start with roughing cuts to carve the initial block to something close, and plan finishing cuts that give you the desired surface finish at the end. A do your debugging where a "crash" can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars in broken tools and machinery.
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As you're well aware, even with good software, nothing can replace an experienced operator. I used to work in manufacturing with a CNC machine, and there were lots of idiosyncracies of the machine and shop practices that I had to account for.
This particular machine used a vacuum pump to hold the material down for cutting, which was usually fine, but the suction would be weaker around the edges and strongest in the center. The practical result was that I very quickly learned never to place small parts near t
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Re:Really need open source CAM (Score:4, Interesting)
You're right, I splashed the cash and bought.
Mach3 CNC controller
MeshCAM
Rhino
Let's say you have a small machine that has an XYZ envelope of 300mm a side, that's 27,000,000 millimetre cubes, or unique XYZ positions the tool and toolpath can follow.
1mm precison is worthless, at 0.1 mm precision you just went up to 27,000,000,000 unique positions, at 0.01 mm precision you just went up to 27,000,000,000,000.
You're probably not going to get a linear speed in excess of 1 metre second on anything even remotely hobby, 250 mm min is more like it...
at 0.01 mm resolution that's 25,000 positions in 60 seconds, that's approx 417 a second
we've got 27,000,000,000,000, so / 417 = 18 million hours to traverse all 27 x 10^12 points.
even assuming you had that kind of time, your machine is burning electricity at several cents a kWh... do the math.
So you can see how optimised tool paths, and so on are literally god when it comes to CNC.
Sure, there are free OS alternatives to the stuff I paid for, but I don't have the time left to live, nor the inclination to pay the electric bill, that using the free OS alternatives requires.
HTH etc
Re:Really need open source CAM (Score:4, Interesting)
You're right, I splashed the cash and bought.
Mach3 CNC controller
MeshCAM
Rhino
[snip the math and analysis]
The resolution of the machine is irrelevant, it's the tool size that matters. If you have a 1/2" diameter end mill, you cut a 1/2" swath through the material. It makes no difference if you have 0.01 inch resolution or 0.00001 inch resolution, you'll still step over by about 1/2 inch when using that tool.
So you can see how optimised tool paths, and so on are literally god when it comes to CNC.
Yep, for production machining, optimized toolpaths are a very good thing. The common limiting factor for small machines though is spindle horsepower. The machine can only remove so much metal per hour, and that's directly proportional to the spindle horsepower. It varies with many factors (cutter material, cutter coating, cutter speed, coolant/lubricant, etc), but it's the thing that limits the depth of cut you can use for a given end mill. There's also no such thing as an "optimal path". There are many factors that determine what may be optimal in a given situation - surface finish (the look of it), surface roughness, tool life, machine rigidity, and more.
Sure, there are free OS alternatives to the stuff I paid for, but I don't have the time left to live, nor the inclination to pay the electric bill, that using the free OS alternatives requires.
I sure hope you're talking about non-optimal free CAM, because as it happens, the most capable machine controller available (for less than $5000) happens to be the open source one. I only put in the price limit because I hope that the vendors selling the more expensive controllers actually have some better features than EMC2 - I know what you have doesn't.
Obligatory (Score:2)
Well I, for one, welcome our robot metal-sculpting overlords.
Impressive but not new (Score:4, Informative)
Transparent aluminum for the visor (Score:2)
That's all well and good... (Score:3, Funny)
Very nice. But not that unusual. (Score:4, Informative)
Very nice. But not that unusual for a modern machine tool. Here's a Matsura mill doing much the same thing. [youtube.com] It's the software that's interesting.
The current generation of machining software finally has constructive solid geometry that really works. The software can predict where the surface of the work is, as material is removed from it, and can reliably calculate clearances to the tools. I'm very impressed. This really works for arbitrary convex objects now. I've worked on collision detection enough to understand how hard that is.
Coordinating the multiple axes isn't the hard part. That's just relative transformation matrices, which has been done in computer graphics for many years. (Although the newer robot and machining systems understand some of the machine dynamics, and consider inertia. That's new.) It's the modeling of the surface as it changes that's hard.
This is very expensive software, but it's worth it. You need both HyperMill and either SolidWorks or Inventor. You design the part in SolidWorks or Inventor, then use HyperMill to generate the commands for the CNC machine. Total cost is upwards of $10,000. The CNC machine tool itself is relatively dumb; it's just running previously computed moves. The newer machine tools have software to display the 3D model and the tool, so you can check the planned moves against the actual ones when setting up.
Nobody machines consumer products out of solid blocks of metal except as a demo, of course. It takes hours to machine something that can be made in seconds by stamping or molding. Machine tools are used mostly to make stamping and molding dies, and one-off parts. Also, even in modest volumes, you don't start with plain blocks of metal. You cast or forge a blank and machine off the excess.
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I'm pretty sure my unibody macbook pro is a consumer product.
We're safe for now. (Score:2, Funny)
I thought it was making a T-800 skull.
And I almost bought a one-way ticket to Japan to save man kind.
Motorcycle helmet? Pah! (Score:2)
Its would've been a much cooler (and scarier) demo if they'd carved out a Cylon head instead of a motorcycle helmet.
I just got a hardon for hardware! (Score:2)
This has never happened to me before (for a machine ore piece of hardware).
That helmet is beautiful, but the machine that made it is sexy. I want two. NOW! one on each side of me.
Looks good, but .... (Score:2)
Aerospace (Score:3, Interesting)
Ever see gas turbines machined? Goes for cars too. A lot of very cool and useful things wouldn't be possible without awesome machine tools. The physics and math behind these things is pretty amazing too.
Now sew me a shirt (Score:2)
Why is this impressive? (Score:3, Interesting)
A helmet?
About five years ago at Oshkosh, Williams International was showing-off a compressor turbine hub assembly for their EJ-2 engine. It was milled from a single piece of metal; hub, compressor blades, everything. One piece.
A 'helmet.' Pbbbbbttttt. . . .
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The environmental control system on the F-16 contains a bowling-ball-sized turbo (including hot and cold side + housing) with both the turbine and the compressor milled from solid stock. These have been in use since the 70's.
This is a very rough, very imprecise, and much less complex version of what I'm talking about:
http://www.flat4online.co.uk/catalog/images/64c0_1.JPG [flat4online.co.uk]
I took special note of that particular assembly because as far as I have seen, it is the most complex machined part on the entire aircraft
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That's nothing... This is impressive, they're practically printing steel parts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq-JYKG7TQc&feature=related [youtube.com]