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Mazak Lathe: Entering Offsets 285

CNC Controls: Mazak Department

Offsets for Turning

Lesson: 2 of 12

Modern, high-tech products are made with intricate and sophisticated parts. Today's manufacturing requires processes that can make these parts with extreme precision and accuracy. Maintaining proper tolerances on parts is vital to product precision and accuracy, and is an important part of your job as a Mazak Mazatrol Matrix lathe operator. The performance of the lathe and the quality of parts is directly tied to accurately positioning cutting tools in relation to the workpiece and accounting for tool wear. Prior to any run or lot of parts, a lathe operator stores a series of offsets that reference the cutting edge of each tool. An offset is a numerical value that locates machine components in order to compensate for tool and workpiece locations. Figure 1 shows an interface where offset values are stored. The main purpose of offsets is to shift the tool orientation from machine zero to workpiece zero, as shown in Figure 2. Without offsets, the tools would not be properly aligned with the workpiece. Each workpiece has its own unique workpiece zero. You must enter new offsets before turning the first part of a run. As you continue to make parts, you should make incremental adjustments to the offsets to maintain tolerances. Viewing, navigating, and adjusting offsets to maintain tolerances are crucial tasks for any Mazak lathe operator. This class will teach you various offsets of the Mazak lathe, how to view offsets using the Matrix control, and how to adjust offsets to compensate for tool wear.

Lesson Images

Figure 1. Tool-related offsets are input to the control through an interface.

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Figure 2. The main purpose of offsets is to shift the tool orientation from machine zero to workpiece zero, thus maintaining the accuracy of finished parts.

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