That Wednesday shift where nothing went right on the Haas VF-3

I had a day last month that still bugs me when I think about it. I was running a production job on our Haas VF-3, and the first part came out with a bad surface finish on the chamfer. Turned out the insert had chipped, so I swapped it and re-ran the part. Then the coolant pump started making this grinding noise about an hour later, and I had to stop and clean the filter in the tank. After that was fixed, the probe failed to set the work offset on the next part, so I lost another 20 minutes troubleshooting. Three things went wrong in one 6 hour shift, and I only got 12 good parts out of the 30 I needed. Has anyone else had a run of bad luck like that on a simple job?

2 comments

2 Comments

richardk262d ago

I used to think those rough days were all about bad luck or the machine just being cranky. But after having a shift where I had to swap inserts, clean a coolant filter, and re-probe all in one afternoon I realized it's usually a sign I've been slacking on maintenance or not paying attention to the little things. A bad day like that is almost always my fault somehow.

davidh882d ago

@richardk26 what was the one thing you found yourself skipping most often before those days went sideways? For me it was always the damn coolant filter checks and not swapping inserts early enough. Trying to squeeze one more part out of a worn edge always came back to bite me in the ass harder than just changing it on schedule. Did you have a specific maintenance item that was your weak spot too?