In this video, TRAKing Pat goes over his favorite subject, TRAKing!, with the brand new ProtoTRAK RMX CNC featured on TRAK DPMRX toolroom mills. The new RMX Control creates a perfect blend of machine, CNC, and the operator. We have taken the existing ProtoTRAK capabilities to the next level with improved AGE functions, smooth Touchscreen navigation, and many more outstanding features. With the ProtoTRAK RMX, you will feel in control through your entire machining operation. TRAKing is an optional feature for the TRAK DPM RX2 & TRAK DPM RX3 Bed Mills.
Hey Everybody, it's TRAKing Pat and today we're gonna talk about my favorite subject, which is TRAKing!, believe it or not. What TRAKing is, is the ability to use the Electronic Hand Wheels and have complete control of the way that the machine tool works.
So, I want you to think of this scenario right here: You've made a difficult part like the one you see showing up here on the screen. You've got everything checked out in your PC and you got everything checked out in your control, the toolpath looks right. You think your zeroes are all good. And now comes the scariest part of all: I've got to push GO and still hope that I didn't miss something along the way.
And so what we're gonna do is show you how TRAKing actually helps take that fear away and give you all the power that you want to have in the control all at the same time while making this piece part. So let me show you how that's done.
Alright, so here we are in the RUN mode, and now I'm gonna show you the real Joy of TRAKing, watch how this works. First thing I'm going to do is, I'm gonna go to CNC RUN Mode and I'm gonna push GO. And when I push GO, it's gonna go home. Alright, so in here, it's telling me to turn the spindle on like it normally would, and now I'm ready to make parts.
But this is where the scary part comes in, right? Because now I got to hope that everything's gonna happen right when I push that GO button, because this time we're cutting chips. But in our case, we're just going to go to TRAKing, and when we're in TRAKing I want to explain one more thing, and that's the fact that you have two hand wheels. Your X-axis hand wheel is actually the Coarse Feed and your Y-axis hand wheel is the Fine Feed.
So as I come into here and I start moving the handle, you'll notice that it starts making the part. And as I get down here a little closer, I have the chance to stop and first make sure that what I'm seeing there is what I'm also seeing up here so that I know that I'm in the right vicinity. Now I'm gonna go to the Fine Feed and I'm gonna start the machining process, right?
So you're gonna see here that it's gonna start cutting into the part in a spiral action, right? And as it starts to machine through here and it looks like it's doing everything the way I want it to, at that point, I can move over and hit the RUN mode or maybe I don't see something that I think is supposed to be happening.
The other great thing about TRAKing is I could say, "Hey, that's not right," and I go backwards and I can get right back out of here, right? And say, "Okay, let's go back and start this over, maybe something isn't quite right." In my case, I know it is, so I'm going to get back to where I was at here. I'm just going to hit the STOP button and I'm going to go to CNC Run and then I'm going to push GO and let it do the work itself.
Here, you're witnessing the Adaptive Machining process and you'll see how it's cutting and keeping the chip load the same all the time and flying through the park pretty quickly. If at any point though I don't like something that's going on, once again, I can hit STOP, I can go back to TRAKing and again, I'm in control of what's going on with the process here from start to finish.
So, again, as I do this I can use the TRAKing mode each time I change tools or any time I go to a different part. Let's say there's a clamp in the way and I'm getting really close to that clamp. I can STOP, go to TRAKing, get beyond the clamp or move the clamp, go back into TRAKing, make sure I'm in the right place. Then, once again, STOP, CNC Run, let it rip. As you can tell from this process, there's no time whatsoever that I should feel uncomfortable with what's going on right here because I know exactly what I'm seeing all the time. I can even see it happening on the screen and I know that I'm in the right place over there as well as I am over here as I'm watching the whole process work.
So I hope you see how beneficial it is to use TRAKing in the machine. And as everything else that we do around here, we're going to show you more of it as we go on to some of our other videos. But for now, this should get you started. Remember I'm TRAKing Pat, and keep on TRAKing.
