Speed Up Your Tapping Cycle

How much time do you spend tapping holes on your mills? You might be surprised how much time is non-productive while the tap retracts to the start position ready for the next hole.

Haas engineers recognise this and with vers. 10.18 mill software or newer (approx. 1999), all Haas mills equipped with the Rigid Tapping function have the ability to retract out of the hole at a different speed to that of the programmed in-feed. The user is offered two options to affect this, either through a global value entered into Setting 130 which will affect all tapping cycles or through a programmed code on the end of the specific G84 line which will temporarily override the value of Setting 130.

So how does this work in practice?

On a specific tapping cycle the way to specify this is to use a J code in the line that commands the tap.  J2 retracts twice as fast as the entry motion, J3 retracts three times as fast, and so on, up to J9. A J code of zero will be ignored.  If a J code is specified less than zero or greater than 9, alarm 306 INVALID I,J,K or Q is generated.  The J code is not modal, and must be specified in each block the effect is wanted. Note that the J value must not contain a decimal point, and if no J code is specified the machine will behave normally.

Alternatively, you can change the value of Setting 130 such that If it is set to zero or 1, the machine behaves normally.  If it is set to 2, it will be the equivalent of running a G84 with a J code of 2.  That is, the spindle will retract twice as fast as it went in. If this setting is set to 3, it will retract three times as fast just as it would if the J code was entered on the G84 line in the program.  Note that specifying a J code for a specific tapping line in the program will override setting 130.