Went to a local job shop last Thursday and it changed my mind about manual offsets

I always thought manual offsets were a waste of time for production runs, but the old timer there showed me how he tweaks his Z by .002 every 50 parts to account for tool wear. He was holding +/- .0005 across a 200 piece run without any probe cycles. Has anyone else tried this instead of relying on tool setters?

2 comments

2 Comments

coleman.jamie1mo agoMost Upvoted

That .002 every 50 parts thing only works if your tool wear is predictable.

fox.jesse1mo ago

Run a test batch first and track every 10 parts for the first 50, then adjust the interval based on what you see. I mean, if your material consistency is all over the place or you swap inserts mid run, the math just falls apart. Idk, maybe it's just me but I'd rather spend the time dialing in the real wear pattern than trusting a blanket number. The trick is recording where the cut starts to shift and using that as your trigger instead of a fixed part count. Once you have that data, you can set up a simple chart that tells you when to measure, not just guess. It's tedious but saves way more scrap in the long run.