7/11/05

High Tec Industrial is honored to be featured in the July 2005 edition of Modern Machine Shop.  Page 92 is a feature article highlighting ATK in Clearfield Utah, HTI's first 5axis customer.  We would like to thank Pete Zelinski for his time and effort in writing this article and the staff of MMS for their professionalism in helping is through the details of this project.  The article is a very accurate reflection of HTI's capabilities and success on this project.  

When Probing Is Pivotal:  Software for using the probe at angles expands the productive capabilities of this plant's five-axis machine....
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By Peter Zelinski
Courtesy Modern Machine Shop, all rites reserved
 http://www.mmsonline.com

6/1/05

High Tec Industrial Inc. is currently releasing ProbeDriver 4axis, an upgraded 3axis product with 4th axis indexing capabilities.  Probe on your 3axis VMC or HMC and index between probing operations automatically using defined Views for rotational orientation.  HTI is also introducing the new ProbeDriver Mill/Turn product to support the increasing number of Mill/Turn applications.  Similar to ProbeDriver 4axis, Mill/Turn will provide the user with normal Prismatic functions at B0 and B90 and Normal Vector inspection at the B0 (or B90) positions.  Primarily designed for the Mazak and Mori Seiki applications, ProbeDriver Mill/Turn will function with most applications requiring only post processor configurations.   

12/6/04

November Manufacturing Engineering SME: On-Machine Probing
 Perhaps the biggest potential gain from on-machine probing is fast and accurate setup. Machining programs can be referenced to part features rather than to one feature on the stationary fixture, cutting setup times to just a few minutes....
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                                      By Jim Destefani, Senior Editor
                Courtesy Manufacturing Engineering SME, all rites reserved
                                                 http://www.sme.org
 

11/10/04

Shops and plants that are thinking of investing to realize a more automated process may be overlooking an automation tool that already waits in the machining center.

Through the use of a machining center's spindle-mounted probe, a shop can save time and effort in a variety of ways....
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By Peter Zelinski
Courtesy Modern Machine Shop, all rites reserved
 http://www.mmsonline.com

With a number of recent customer requests, we wish to announce that HTI is now supporting Fagor Machine Controls.  While these controls do not comprise a significant potion of the US market, they are showing up consistently on 3-5 axis Routers, Water Jet and Laser machines.  Additionally Fagor commands a large market share in Europe and the Pacific Rim, two regions that HTI is expanding into.  While considerably different in syntax to a Fanuc or Haas control, the Fagor represents one of the few control manufactures that have invested heavily in a PC based format.  To our knowledge, outside of Fagor having several prismatic probing functions, we are currently the only US company supporting advanced programming applications for this control.  Special thanks to Rillos Engineering for their support on this project www.rillosengineering.com.
 

10/12/04

ProbeDriver 5axis- Customer Response

Despite the fact that HTI has not made a formal announcement regarding the availability of ProbeDriver 5axis, rumors have apparently spread.  Over the past 1.5 weeks we have received 6 inquiries for 5axis, 2 that have already turned to PO's.  The official notification to all end-users, reseller network and general mailing will go out later this week.  Everyone on the Team is working very hard to keep up with customer requests and tech support, and we appreciate your patience at this time.  Thanks to all!- Brent Bowman President High Tec Industrial Inc. 

09/29/04

ProbeDriver 5axis- 1st Customer Install

This week myself and the Team spent two days on-site installing the first Release version of ProbeDriver 5axis. The install went incredibly smoothly and we were a bit surprised to find that overall the system was very bug free.  The install was really a combined final prove-out and install with the same customer that provided machine access back in June.  For myself this was the first time I had actually seen a machine inspecting in 5axis motion....I was truly amazed at our own development!  The investment of time, effort and money all became worth it in minutes along with the realization of how many doors will be open to our multi axis customers.  Renishaw Corporate wanted to be onsite for this installation, however, I asked them not to come, in case we had unforeseen problems.  In hind sight I wish they had been there.  Enthusiasm is very high in Chicago for this truly industry 1st development.  Among some of the incredible results from this install are three major items worth special mention.  1st, is that the Teams research allow them to find a way to create a truly safe protected positioning mode that will bring all axises to an instant stop in the positioning move if the probe is tripped!  This was aided by some great contacts at Fanuc.   2nd is the effort the Team put into the software interface to allow the user so many choices of how to approach the measurement feature, and they all worked flawlessly!  3rd is the overall accuracy of the probe using our new calibration routine.  This is not the final version of the calibration, but really a pre-runner.  The probe being used was an MP3, a non-straingage (non-MP700), probe with a total combined pre-travel error of about .0028 using standard calibration.  Knowing this we were hoping to be within .005 with this probe, using standard calibration.  However we were hopeful of gaining some accuracy with the Alpha version of our new calibration and are pleased to report that we could consistently hold to about .0025 on any angle!  A significant achievement to say the least....hats off to the Team for making such a success of the code!  Official results and video will be posted to the web site as soon a we have time to update it.  Just by the number of calls poring in, we can tell we have winner here!  We are already developing ROI information for one customer that will pay off their investment in three weeks! Enough said! Special thanks to Alliant Techsystems for their help on this project.  Brent Bowman President High Tec Industrial Inc.
 

08/16/04

HTI transitions from SAC to full Surfcam Dealership

Surfware corporate recently announced that Dominic Lanzillotta was coming back on board at the North American VP of Sales.  As part of Dominic's responsibilities, he reviewed all previous SAC and BAP partner agreements.  Upon reviewing HTI's SAC agreement, he felt it would serve HTI and Surfware better to promote our company to a full Surfcam Dealership.  While HTI's primary relationship with Surfware has been in relation to the ProbeDriver product line, this announcement opens the doors for greater support to both our ProbeDriver and Surfcam customers.  We are honored to be included in the Surfcam Dealers Network.- Brent Bowman, President High Tec Industrial Inc.
 

07/08/04

SolidWorks part of HTI product line

We are thrilled to announce that we have finalized our reseller agreement with Quest Integration in Post Falls Idaho.  This agreement will license HTI to offer the complete SolidWorks suite of engineering software to our local customer base, as well as providing our out-of-state customers with access to Solidworks knowledge base and local dealer support.  HTI will be providing joint Tech Support on the Solidworks products though Quest Integration.  Having the Solidworks tools will provide HTI with access to this premier engineering and development tool to further support our customers with solutions they need to be competitive in our ever-changing manufacturing environment.  Please take to check out Quest Integrations web site at www.qintegration.com -Brent Bowman, President High Tec Industrial Inc.
 

06/24/04

ProbeDriver 5axis- Initial Test

This week Mark  tested the first version of ProbeDriver 5axis.  The test included the new 5axis bore/boss and vector functions.  The initial results were surprisingly successful considering this was the first attempt at driving the motion of the machine.  Some problems were encountered with tripping the probe during B and/or C rotation...the X,Y,Z axises continued motions.  Mark knows believes he know the answer to the problem and will be resolved shortly.  Also some expected inaccuracy with calibration was encountered, adding weight to our need to develop a new method for calibrating the probe.  Testing took place over 3 days on a Fanuc 15 control and a nutating head.  While we encountered expected challenges, our results were better than expected and we are well on our way to releasing the 5axis product in the fall.  Special thanks to our customers who have provided so much product input and donated machine time to test....Thank You!- Brent Bowman, President High Tec Industrial Inc.