"Conversational" cnc programming good or bad??

[rik]

to me, conversational is the "cnc for dummies". not saying that its a bad thing, i just prefer to program the ole fashioned way. thats just me though. the only thing i do like about conversational, is that its easier for "operators" to pick up. we have had more success in teaching the glorified operators, or parts loaders, how to use conversational, than teaching them G and M codes. with the conversational, if something is off the machine tells you as it test runs the program they wrote. where as if they attempt to write a program on say a fadal, and they have one little piece of code wrong, it can go two ways, A) the machine errors out or B) BAM, it crashes. usually it crashes. and as a manager, i dont like to see that as it costs money in tooling and down time. the coversational, again, to me, is like like telling it i want a line. the line starts here and ends here. at the end of the line, put a radius. then start another line. oh, We have 2 Mazaks that use conversational in case your wondering.

though the hole pattern feature on the mazaks is just awesome. i want "x" amount of holes in a row, each spaced "y" apart. 2 columns please, spaced "x" apart. that beats the hell out of programing each hole. (obviously the x and y are #'s and not axis')

 

[mtdriver]

Agreeing with Rik on the Mazak's offering of hole patterns, lines, etc.

Face milling something is as easy as use this tool, and cover an area this big. Done.

Want to drill a hole with a counter bore and tap it too? Theres one unit of code with all 4 tools to do so that pops up. Auto set the speeds/feeds unless you know specifically what you want. Tell it a coordinate, line of holes, or a grid. Easy.

I run a Mazak 700D II VMC and a Mazak 250 MSY lathe with 2 spindles. I took night school at a local tech school for 2 years. One year of manual machines and one year of CNC on HAAS machines. Graduated in 2009. I picked up this job sometime back in April or May. I hadnt touched a CNC or manual machine since school. I had barely 2 weeks with the previous programmer/operator. I learned most of the stuff myself, the software really makes it that easy.

I went to Mazak for programming on the lathe. Only thing I didnt know was using the Y axis and C axis properly.

I will eventually go for the VMC too but so far its not a problem.

For the type of simple work we do at my shop its the bees knees. For anything complicated or 3D on the VMC its a letdown because we dont have the software. Lathe is a bit better because of the Y axis. I can do turning and milling in one setup. But only little parts because there is only a few inches of movement in that axis.

Also programmed and operated the Mazak Laser at my shop for a year and a half. Not even remotely related because its software controlled.

Point is: I love my Mazaks.

 

[sickcivic95]

MT what type of work does your shop do, and have you looked at software for the VCM? One of the man reasons I asked about the conversational Programming, is that a lot of the work we run at my shop is pretty straight forward as well nothing too in depth and could prob be done relatively quick by this type instead of using the mains, But we also have quite a few that are pretty detailed pieces and those we run on the HAAS hands down. I try to keep these up and running as much as possible with large runs vs the small prototype runs I'd be using the Prototrax for.


--Dan

 

[mtdriver]

We manufacture service equipment for the auto repair industry. Alongside our own brand of products, we also manufacture products for companies like Rotary Lift. We are also a job shop taking on a wide variety of jobs. We run one shift only with about 10 employees between fabrication, assembly, and shipping.

We have the Mazak 4,000 watt laser which runs all day and usually into the night. It takes 60" x 120" sheets up to 1" in MS, 1/2" in SS, and 1/4" in AL. The bulk of our products are laser cut parts the go on to another process. We do most of our customer work there as well. I started in assembly and moved to this after my first 90 days. I programmed and operated this for almost a year and a half.

We have a 90 ton Cincinnati CNC Press Brake which takes care of all of our and our customers forming. I am one of the programmers for that. I did most of the operating on it too while the laser was running.

We have 2 employees that take care of hand welding and one employee to run our Lincoln powered robot welder. The robot handles the high quantities while the hand welders do all the complex jobs.

We have a 120" hydraulic shear with 1/2" thick material capacity.

Then we have the Mazak VMC and MSY lathe. I am the only machinist there, and Ive been programming and operating those around 6 months. Was kinda thrown at it with no real training at all. Took a month or so to really get into it but once I got rolling its been a pretty aggressive learning curve. I never dealt with anything so large, or tooling so expensive. 95% of it was new to me. Figuring out how to read the programs already there was the first challenge. Everything else came by way of trial and error and/or busted carbide...

We use our VMC like a giant Bridgeport. Nothing too complicated goes in there. Lots of repeatable hole drilling and tapping. Making slots or pockets in laser cut parts. Usually pretty easy.

I have barely scratched the surface of any CAM software for either machine though. We dont have any real use for it as far as our own parts go, and for customer jobs we look for quick turnaround because of our low staff and single shift. Thats one of the benefits as a machining newbie there, in that our and our customers tolerances are easily attainable. We dont do much work at all for customers tighter than + or = .001". Its just too much time to invest when our own products take up 99% of the machining time. Not to mention we dont exactly have the right equipment to properly measure those types of parts. Most of our stuff has a standard .005" tolerance, although I try to keep it as close as possible. I feel like a slacker if I dont.

The lathe gets the biggest workout and took the most time for me to learn. It has an older controller than the VMC does, so in the beginning going back and forth was confusing. We have a 48" barfeeder on it so it runs a lot of easy unmanned night jobs. Ive come back the next day with it still running parts.

I love my job!