IMTS

[YoDoug]

At the airport waiting to board

[Shazam/TPP]

say hello to Titan for us.....BOOM!!

[mega]

A-Plus is on display at the Mastercam Booth and the new heat simulation I've been working on for them, if you have time!
booth #133222

[YoDoug]

Back in the office today. I didn't walk the entire show, I just hit the areas that I was looking for specific solutions. I didn't find any "OMG this changes everything" products. I was specifically looking for better work-holding solutions for contoured parts. Nothing jumped out. I also spent a bit of time talking with Cognex and ABB applications about vision systems ability to detect different parts that are very similar in shape with only small feature changes. It is possible, but we will need to do some testing with them. I do have a camera on order for our Doosan cobot. That should be here in a week or two. The show was noticeably smaller than past years. There were a lot of open spaces in the back of the south and west halls.

[gcode]

There were a lot of open spaces in the back of the south and west halls.

Westec is a sad pitiful shell of it's former glory
The last time I went was 2019.
They were only using half the Main Hall and it took 4 hours to walk the whole show twice.
It was not even close to being worth the drive into LA
Now they've moved it from the LA Convention Center to Long Beach which is an even worse drive.
I doubt I'll ever go again.

[CNCAppsJames]

I was specifically looking for better work-holding solutions for contoured parts. Nothing jumped out.

You check these guys out?

https://www.bluephotongrip.com/

I got to walk the show MAYBE 3 hours in the 4 days. I was supposed to have 3 half days to do so. About an hour in the software area, about 2 hours in the main hall. Very disappointed in that. I got NOTHING accomplished that I needed to. 

Oh well, there's ways 2024. 

[CNCAppsJames]

Westec is a sad pitiful shell of it's former glory
The last time I went was 2019.
They were only using half the Main Hall and it took 4 hours to walk the whole show twice.
It was not even close to being worth the drive into LA
Now they've moved it from the LA Convention Center to Long Beach which is an even worse drive.
I doubt I'll ever go again.

Long Beach is where trade shows go to die.

[CNCAppsJames]

IMTS 2022 MIA list;
DMG Mori
Kennametal
Sandvik

Heard Mori didn it's own thing at their US  HQ in Chitcago... also heard they didn't have much by way of equipment.

[crazy^millman]

You check these guys out?

https://www.bluephotongrip.com/

I got to walk the show MAYBE 3 hours in the 4 days. I was supposed to have 3 half days to do so. About an hour in the software area, about 2 hours in the main hall. Very disappointed in that. I got NOTHING accomplished that I needed to.

Oh well, there's ways 2024.

Great Product, we have a few customers using it and they love the system.

[YoDoug]

IMTS 2022 MIA list;
DMG Mori
Kennametal
Sandvik

Heard Mori didn it's own thing at their US  HQ in Chitcago... also heard they didn't have much by way of equipment.

Makino didn't have a single machine on display. Just a big booth with a bunch of tables and a sea of salesman standing around. I didn't bother stopping.

[MIL-TFP-41]

IMTS 2022 MIA list;
DMG Mori
Kennametal
Sandvik

lots of companies under those umbrella's were missing as well. Seco, Walter, everyone under Sandvik. Didn't notice Hanita, greenfield, or others in the Kennametal team. I did notice that some other companies took the prime real estate that was left, like YG took Sandviks spot over.

Other large scale machine tool companies like SNK either were not there or they had scale models set up. I guess the expense of renting out million dollar space with multi-million dollar machine tools is getting tough to justify.

I can see things shifting with these shows. Why would DMG-Mori put out 10 million to rent space for one week when they have a taj-mahal setup in Chicago? They can fly and pay for rooms for a ton lot of customers with that kind of money....and also keep them from getting distracted from all the other competing brands.

All in all I think I spent 16 hours walking around. Got to see what I needed to, got some ideas for processing stuff, but no real game changers. Was worth my time, but glad I didn't stay any longer.

[CNCAppsJames]

I can see things shifting with these shows. Why would DMG-Mori put out 10 million to rent space for one week when they have a taj-mahal setup in Chicago? They can fly and pay for rooms for a ton lot of customers with that kind of money....and also keep them from getting distracted from all the other competing brands.

Jim Jones had DMG's same philosophy in Jonestown, Guyana. It was VERY effective.

[gcode]

Other large scale machine tool companies like SNK either were not there or they had scale models set up. I guess the expense of renting out million dollar space with multi-million dollar machine tools is getting tough to justify.

Not to mention you pay union rates to move all that equipment in and then back out.
I've been told the people working the shows cannot  use anything with wheels to go or out of the show.
Anything you carry is cool, but if it's got wheels a union goon has got to move it...

Back in the mid 80's my partner's son had a union card for working those shows. He'd do a Wednesday move in, Sunday move out and make $3 to 4K. That was 2 or 3 months pay for normal people.
He'd blow it on meth and crack ho's and end up broke and in prison a week later. His daddy would keep the union card paid up and he'd do it all over again when he got set free. That went on for 2 decades. I don't know if he's even alive now

[CNCAppsJames]

Not to mention you pay union rates to move all that equipment in and then back out.
I've been told the people working the shows cannot  use anything with wheels to go or out of the show.
Anything you carry is cool, but if it's got wheels a union goon has got to move it...

Shows in Southern California it's $10,000 per machine on average ($5k in, $5k out). Show space is about $8,000-$12,000/sq. ft. depending. Plus air. Plus Electrical. Plus displays. Plus carpet. Plus setup labor.

LA shows while they can be challenging, aren't anywhere near the cluster fuck that Chitcago is. The Union goons there in Chitcago... if you break the rules - even the unwritten ones, they'll fuck you up. They don't mess around. You'll get fined, they will make you wait. They'll break your stuff. And law enforcement won't help either. If you want to try to do work in your booth during setup week you better be prepared to fork over some cash, some beer and pizzas for the crew. In LA, as long as you hire some labor, they'll stay content for the most part. Which is fine, they are happy doing the tasks we don't want to do and isn't really in our wheelhouse anyway (booth and display structure/setup).

[civiceg]

Oh IMTS what a blast it was....

4 days to get power to the machine. Half a day was spent for the "electrician" to flip the breaker on the bus. Then the machine was phased wrong, luckily I could swap phases on the internal transformer on the machine as I couldn't wait another half a day for the "electrician" to flip the breaker. "Electrician" wanted to use their own twist lock on our 220 single phase items. Then proceeded to mismatch the legs in his 5 pin twist lock. As we are running on single phase...1 pair of hot wires were not connected as the terminals were not consistent.

Power for three connections was around 7k
Water and coolant drain (mind you we brought our own coolant) 1.5k
Rigging/transport, I don't want to think about it, but was probably close to 15k

AirBNB worked out well, not the best area, but no one got mugged or shot.


Booth next to ours almost had their hanging display knocked over by a man lift during setup. If you don't keep you head on a swivel it is downright deadly during setup. Forklift drivers smashed quite a few displays or near misses.

During breakdown removal of power to the machine took a day and a half. Between setup, the show, meetings, and breakdown. I think I was in it for around 200 hours.

Overall we had a good show with a lot of attendance. Booth was packed up until Thursday. But, was it worth it? I can see why vendors are pulling out.