A few bugs here, a few there (Suzie has chased one under my lathe).Some on the floor, some in the system, but it looks like the only ones left are for Suzie. The Centroid/BOSS is up, running and starting to pay for itself. Will not bore you with the details, but if the work continues like it has started, the mill and complete retrofit will be out of the red in a few months.

Minor bugs in the system: Centroid uses optical cable from the control to the servo board and then to the servos. A glitch in the system caused the factory rep to order a new servo board. Problem persisted. Turned out an optical cable was bent a little too much. It was sending a light pulse, but the pulse was not bright enough. Wiggled the cable around, and everything works fine. Ordered a new cable just in case. The power switch on the back of the cabinet has to be replaced. Mine is not the only one it seems.

The Centroid system is dirt simple to operate and once the lights pop on (in the operator's head) it is really easy and very powerful to use. I am NOT a CNC user. This is my first, so what I am saying is probably "old hat" to those with a little more experience. I am accustomed to building a part using a CAD system where you start with a piece of material of specific dimensions and cut on it until you get a finished part. (In other words remove all material that does not look like the part you want to make.) This is not how the Centroid system works.

With Centroid you put a piece of material on the mill table large enough to make a part. Put the cutter over a particular part of the material and establish a "part zero". From part zero, you go anywhere and do anything you like - cut a straight line, an arc, a circle, rapid to another position, drill, tap, chamfer, drill a bolt hole pattern etc. From the end of the previous cut or "canned cycle" you make a second cut, then a third, fourth etc, until the part is completed.

You can perform canned cycles (bolt hole pattern, tapping cycles, pockets, bosses, etc) or perform individual tasks - straight lines, arcs etc. Each process starts where the last one stopped. Each cut allows the operator to radius into the next cut for radius corners etc. The operator does not write the G code. When a cut is entered, the operator looks at it using the graphic display. If it looks right, the "F10" accepts it. When the part is completed, "F10" accepts the part and writes the G code. Press the green button and cut the part.

The first job - 12 parts like you see in the above picture - started out as pieces of UHMW plastic 2"x6"x21". The circular cut outs have a radius of 2.625" from a point .5" above the top of the part. The BOSS has a table travel of 12"x18". The finished part is 20.5" on the long side and just under 18" on the short side. It required different setups because of the length, but the top with the two half circles was cut at one pass. Took about 5 minutes to do the programming on the top and a couple of minutes to do the entire cut. Rough cut the entire top with one pass at 30 ipm and then did a finish cut removing about .030".

Going from a J head Bridgeport with a DRO and a manual rotary table to the BOSS with the Centroid - all I can say is WOW !!! These parts would have taken me half a day each to set up and run on the J head.

A WORD OF CAUTION: The Centroid will not allow itself to be hurt or injured by an ignorant operator. It protects the mill's ball screws just as diligently, but it could care less if cutters, arms, fingers, part setups or anything else gets hurt or damaged. When the operator presses a button the Centroid does EXACTLY as it is told to do even if the mill table moves the vise straight into an expensive cutter. This is one of those deals like looking both ways before crossing the street. The operator needs to look every direction before pushing the green button. A simple thing like homing the table can be catastrophic if a part set up happens to be in the way.

Many offered help and suggestions during this epic. Many of those suggestions were very helpful. My thanks to all. I am a border line passable machinist. This is the first CNC I have ever put my hands on. The first part I cut was for a paying job. No practice cuts, no training video, just jumped in and made chips. The fact that I produced 12 acceptable parts from 12 blanks with no instructor hanging over my shoulder is a testament to the ease of the system and not the ability of the operator.

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