Fettling

    Dear Friends,
    i am trying to do a fettling operation with unversal-robots robot,
    I have attached the tool to Robot and component on which fettling is to be done is aluminum casting.
    I am struggling to get the required finish. can any one tell how important is the robot stable path following.
    I have used the ATI deburrign tool which has radial compliance.

    Can any one suggest what else can be done for smooth finish.

    Thanks and Regards
    sachin

    Just Do It.........

    The critical items, in no particular order, are:
    1. Orientation of the tool relative to the work surface -- the cutter/grinder should be perfectly flat to the surface you are trying to polish
    2. Grit: you need to be using the correct degree of abrasive for the material you are polishing, and for the level of polish you are trying to attain. In some cases, if the casting is of poor quality, achieving a good polish may require making multiple passes with progressively finer grit/abrasive.
    3. Force: most compliant tools have some degree of control for how much force their compliant structure applies before yielding. This force must be correct. This will also interact with the robot velocity.
    4. Repeatability: if the casting is not placed in the same location every time, the quality of the polish will be inconsistent. The compliance of the tool can make up for this somewhat, but only to a limited extent.
    5. RPM. The rotation speed of the tool will also interact with the robot velocity and the grit/abrasion of the tool. Getting this combination correct can, unfortunately, take quite a bit of experimentation.

    I use a robot for deflashing aluminum castings, and unfortunately I have always struggled with poor cut quality, poor tool life, and often the endmill just bends the flash over instead of cutting it off. It seems like CNC machines work MUCH better for this because of the flood coolant and rigidity. But, obviously lots of companies successfully use robots to deflash aluminum castings, so maybe I haven't figured out the "secret sauce".

    Here are some suggestions though:
    1) Can you try and slow down the feed rate?
    2) Watch some videos on Youtube from other robot integrators that do this (such as Rimrock, etc) and learn from them. Notice that they have mist sprayers, and HEAVILY spray mist on the cutting tool.
    3) Make two cuts on the flash, the first cut is a few MM away, with low compliance to cut all of the flash to a uniform length, then the second cut, with high compliance, will cut the flash flush to the casting surface

    Hi,
    Robot path accuracy also make some difference.You are doing with universal which are less accurate.
    We also had similar problems but we solved it by other method.Also the robot was Fanuc in our case.

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