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Stayed with manual tool changes instead of switching to automatic
Tbh everyone in my shop pushed me to get a CNC with automatic tool changers. They said it would cut cycle times by half and make me way more productive. But I went with a manual setup because I run a lot of short custom batches where I'm swapping tools between every job anyway. After 8 months I'm tracking about 12 minutes lost per setup versus the auto guys but I save 20 bucks a month on maintenance costs. Plus I feel like I have more control over tool wear since I'm inspecting each one by hand. Has anyone else stuck with manual for production work and felt like it was the right call?
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felixlee3d ago
anderson.david that's the real kicker right there, the twelve minutes is just tool change time not counting the extra time I spend checking my tool holders and cleaning the spindle manually. I do like 5 to 7 setups a shift on average because my batches are never more than 20 parts, so that time does add up but not as bad as I thought. The auto guys in my shop are always fighting with broken tools or crash recovery on their big production runs, I'd rather take my twelve minutes than deal with that headache. I've been running manual for about two years now on a old Haas and I sleep better knowing exactly what's happening with my tools. Plus when you factor in the maintenance savings and zero downtime from automatic changer failures, manual starts looking real smart for short run work.
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anderson.david3d ago
Are you tracking total downtime or just the time spent changing tools manually? That twelve minutes per setup adds up fast if you're doing multiple runs a day. How many setups do you average per shift? Would be curious to see if the numbers shift when you factor in all those small batches versus the bigger runs the auto guys are chasing.
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