This is one of your best videos! Great tips and explanations, clear illustrations, even if people will disagree cuz I'm sure they will, you've made your case well.
sorry to be so offtopic but does someone know a method to get back into an Instagram account..? I was stupid forgot the account password. I would love any tips you can give me!
@Esteban Jimmy thanks for your reply. I found the site through google and im waiting for the hacking stuff now. Takes a while so I will get back to you later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
I've watched the entire series and really learned a lot. Even though I'm a hobbyist with a small machine in my garage, just seeing the thinking behind how the pros do it will help me immensely. Thanks for these videos.
Cool vid and good points. These are all basic clamps that are sold by MiteeBite/CarrLane. In my opinion I would recommend spending the extra money on the “ok vice” vise clamps over the uniforce or channel clamps. The channel clamps are just cheap and don’t perform like you’d want them to. I’ve designed a fixture with them once and will never use them again. If you’re already spending the money on fixturing a job, spend the extra money to make a dependable and repeatable tool. I’ve just recently came across a great fixture supplier, Advanced Machine and Engineering Co. They sell high end fixture components that offer unique solutions to fixture design. Looks to cater to aerospace parts and castings. I realize this video was for miniature clamps focused on pallets but I thought these were definitely worth mentioning. Thanks for the content Piersons!
Best clamps I've ever come across, have been OK-vise. Taking 2xD*85%ae in Aluminium with a 16mm endmill, and have never pulled out a part. Bonus is that you can machine soft jaws for them, and they clamp in two directions.
I love those rocker clamps and use them everywhere. The problem with them in AL fixtures is they tend to indent or divot the fixture after repeated use..fear not! i found a solution. I use thick wall EZ-locks for the screws and we EDM (can be machined) hardened steel saddles that support the back and bottom of the rocker contact points. I guess that's my tip of the day! great videos and i'm happy too see that i don't currently do any of these "do nots!"
You're absolutely right. These clamps will indent into aluminum over time. I discussed the solution in this previous Fixture Friday: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Un0gLEHt8Lk.html
another problem i have had using the smaller clamps is the minimal open and closing movement. in some cases i have found the tolerance on flat bar stock to be +/- larger than the clamps can compensate for. some times within the same bar it can be over sized enough to not go in easy and worse.. feel like its locked the material down when it hasnt and parts go flying.
Great tips, I never thought of the eccentric clamps being able to move up but I do realize that they do not pull the part down. I use eccentric (hexagon style) clamps for some plastic (polypropylene) parts that I do for a customer. The parts are long, thin parts (160x15x8 mm) and having any marks on the side of the parts is out of the question. I only do some facing, milling a 1.5 mm deep pocket with a 3 mm end-mill and some chamfering. So I use them wisely, also for engraving on aluminum parts. I have seen aluminum blocks being pulled out of vices with smooth jaws. I tend to design my clamping such that I should not be able to move the part when I just finger tighten my clamping device (tallon grips, pitbull clamps, vice, ...). If I can move the part then there is a high risk it will move during milling.
Awesome! I'm thinking about getting one of these for my @onefinitycnc "machinist " version of the machine! As opposed to the wasteboard or spoilboard everyone already has. Thanks for all your tips and videos.
Those aluminum channel clamps tend to fatigue and crack easily. I try to get about .001 to.005" gap between the part and the clamp face. The 7075 tends to develop fatigue cracks quickly.
Is this real life? Or is it just fantasy? Great explanation Jay and I agree with your choices for all of the reasons you mentioned. Nothing like throwing a part to make sure you are awake.
I love this video, so great informative content!! What do you think of Talon Jaws? Have lower clamping force for sure, but a lot more low-profile for smaller parts.
Thanks for asking! We use our Pro Pallet System. Loads of holding force. Here's a video on it: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8BTpQlv1haM.html Let us know what you think!
How do you feel about non radially symmetric pallets? Over the 4000+ parts I ran this summer on pallets, I loaded two of the pallets in backwards. It scrapped a few parts and we had to re-machine the pallets. Do you usually design your pallets such that orientation doesn't matter?
I’ve actually have a couple of pallets that take advantage of the fact that they can be loaded rotated 180 degrees on the PPS. Imagine a 2 op part that is held down by screws and you don’t actually want to move the part to the other position on the pallet, just change where the screws are holding the part for the second op. If you alternate the positions of the ops and rotate the pallet 180 degrees each time it lets you run the same program. You just need to make sure your X, Y zero is really correct with respect to the alignment pins on the pallet base when you are machining the pallet so you can be confident all the pallet features are in the same position when it is flipped.
@@zeevyehuda2501 Second op because you need to machine where the screws were holding onto the part during the first op. That’s awesome. I remember seeing some of 192’s swerves on Chief Delphi.
really enjoyed your tips... question... we have a few pallets and a tormach mill. unfortunately the tormach doesn't seem to have enough coolant force to really flush out chips. we end up with a lot of build up around the clamps and on inside features, and after we remove parts there's chips all over the surface of the fixture. takes probably 10 minutes to clean off the pallet in between uses. Any suggestions to help keep the fixture free from chips?
You can replace a pocket that utilizes the back wall of the fixture to locate the part, with a series of dowel pins. By doing this, the part only touches the dowel in a very small section, which is essentially the tangent of a flat piece to the dowel, if that makes sense. I'm not a fan of pockets, if I can help it, since they do exactly what you described. You spend countless hours a month cleaning fixtures out of chips at best, and at worse, you risk the opportunity of one of those chips causing you to scrap a part. The fine art of fixture design has so many facets that most miss the high points. First, repeatability is at the top of the heap. Next is speed, the time spent loading and unloading. Then there's operator friendliness. No one wants to run a machine that kicks your butt all day. Lastly, is exactly what your issue is, cleanliness or at least the ability to be cleaned easily. Pockets, crevices and entrapments are death to a production shop. I've made thousands of fixtures over the years and my favorites were ones that were nothing more than a flat plate of ground A36, with a series of dowel pins sticking up and some of my custom "cam screws". Clean, fast, user friendly and 100% repeatable. Some of these fixtures I produced over 200,000 parts on without a hiccup. Jay is putting out some pretty good content for the novice fixture builder, and it's been in need for a long time, but once you graduate to 4th axis for your fixturing, it's a game changer of epic proportions. My largest part count to date was 276 pieces at a time in one push of the button, but I've done several that were over 80. Lotsa of folks are skipping over 4th axis and heading straight to 5th, which is really a mistake most of the time, as you're limited to just one part at a time, most of the time. 4th axis on a vertical, with a tombstone, and fixture plates, is a gamechanger, that on the lion share of parts I see being put on a 5th, would run circles around. I ran my first 4th axis tombstone on a Haas VF-2 in 1994 running 88 parts at a time.
Awesome video! Super helpful! When you use the bottom hat method (I think its called) where you cut your part out of a block but don't touch the thin bottom portion that is being compressed by the fixture, how thick do you make that portion? For the pitbull clamps its dimension "D" on the Mitee-Bite website. Could you go thinner then that or would you be worried the bottom hat would bow?
Good question! For aluminum, we typically hold between 0.090"-0.120" of material using the 3/4" clamp. For steel and stainless, we always use the recommended "D" dimension of 0.150".
I'm sure this is just pedantics talking, but those machineable clamps that point of contact isn't straight across. Since it's a curved surface against a flat one, the force will be normal to the flat surface. In this case, maybe a difference of only 0.5mm-1mm from the straight line you showed. I'm a blast at parties 😁
Thanks Jay for the great videos. Im currently working with your mini pallet to setup a job and really like the swapping pallets idea. Check out my Kickstarter project I just submitted "Lets Make Dodecahedron Sculptures"
Or by broaching or by using smaller diameter endmills or by using a mating part that has an outside radius but EDM is the most expensive and slowest option and not recommended.
