I just got a Haas VF2SS, its a 2017 fresh out of the factory, promises high speed machining and improved productivity (Speer Speed) .
I operate in the CNC department of a Fixture and Gauge shop, roughing aluminum blocks and finishing on 2 5 axis mikrons. This Haas machine was supposed to be my dedicated roughing machine, it didn't need to be extremely accurate or fast at reading code, just take most weight off these big blocks in prep for the mikrons, thats why I thought haas was a perfect choice. But... maybe I was wrong. I hope someone else was or is in the same boat and can provide some insight or help.
My productivity is bottle necked, of in of all places, the chip conveyor. I've ran standard legacy toolpaths roughing with a 25mm 3 flute cutter and ive run a adaptive HSM with a 1 inch 3 flute 4 inch depth of cut .060 stepover, it dosent mater what shape of chips, size of chips, even amount of chips, this machine is completely useless at evacuating them. I spend at least an hour/ day jogging the machine around and shoveling out bins of chips. The machine fails to wash them down to the auger, they all get piled up on the floor. I'm especially frustated because the chip auger was an added expense to the machine (dosent come factory) so I thought it would atleast work and be worth the money. The chips on the floor all pile up right up to the auger and overhang above it, it looks like one of those token games at the arcade where all the coins pile up over the edge but never seem to fall over.
Of course, the HSM creates bigger chips and fills up the machine faster (about 7 minutes run time, stop and shovel it out for 20) which completely defeated the purpose of high speed machining. Any time i save in spindle time, is compensated x2 in manual chip shoveling.
All the chips, also, find their way down the coolant chute on the back of the machine, clogging the tray and flooding the shop many times over (I shovel it off 2-3 times/day now at minimum) If i forget, it looks like an ice cream truck melted under my machine. I can only imagine how full my resivoir is of chips by now, the holes in the tray are very large. Thats another job ill have to tackle soon is cleaning all that out.
Here are my thoughts, maybe a roughing endmill would break the chips smaller and be evacuated easier?
Maybe if i ran coolant likes blasting down the floor it would flood them to the auger?
What about a screen over the coolant tray to catch chips better?
Has anybody else had problems like this, and fixed it? Id love some input or solutions here. BTW am new to the forum so forgive me if this isnt on topic.