5-Axis Robot Carves Metal Like Butter

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)."

Comments

Craves Metal

[Pennidren]

I read that as "Craves Metal" and was scared as hell.

Re:Craves Metal

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Craves Metal

[McNally]

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.

That's exactly what They want you to think.

This represents a tremendous step forward in aluminum hat technology.

Not to sound overly nationalist

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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

[TheKidWho]

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.

Re:Not to sound overly nationalist

[swanzilla]

By what set of criteria do you judge software to be less valuable than hardware?

BitTorrent.

Re:Not to sound overly nationalist

[shiftless]

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

[TheKidWho]

Yes, this is rather silly since America still has the largest manufacturing industry in the world by a significant margin.

automated sculptors

[mcgrew]

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.

Really need open source CAM

[dbc]

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.