CNC Training - For Real! (I hope)

Could be that don't see anywhere near enough progress in modern CADCAM systems that waste my time.

Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

*************************************************************************

If this is such an important, all-consuming issue to you, why don't you get a job working for a company that designs the software, or better yet, start your own? After all, it's entrepreneurship that makes America great!

Reply to
paul
Loading thread data ...

I' d like to but I can't. I've been here almost two years and not only do I enjoy it here but everyday it proves what liars Joe788 and Tom Brewer are.

Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

Reply to
jon_banquer

Paul, you might have missed it earlier, but Jon already thought he DID have a job with a software company. The only problem is, they didn't know it......

[ I'm committed to working with HSMWorks to doing just that. Shouldn't be too hard because their head of US operations and I see things in almost the exact same way and because HSMWorks is interested in what I have to say and wants to work with me. ]- Jon Banquer - [ Who I'm working with to deliver what truly will be the next generation of CAM:
formatting link
]-Jon Banquer- [ I understand why your shop did not go with HSMWorks. We have a lot of work to do. ] =96 Jon Banquer [ Jon is not affiliated with HSMWorks ApS in any way and that we cannot control what people are writing on the web. Anybody can get evaluation licenses of HSMWorks and test it themselves. I hope this clarifies any doubt. ] - HSMWorks ApS -
Reply to
Joe788

formatting link
"Although "SolidCAM Professor" is a tutorial concept and not an Academic teacher, there is a "father" of this groundbreaking material - Sidney Eisner (see photo). Sidney Eisner is in charge for our Corporate support for North America. Knowing the importance of efficient training material from his previous positions as a CNC programmer and a SolidCAM trainer, he became personally involved in the development of the recordings. We are proud that his work has been recently honoured by a blog:

formatting link
What CAM company has the best website?. Quotes from the blog: "Congratulations to SolidCAM for outstanding use of video that clearly shows where their product has major advantages and how their product works. No other CAM company comes close to what you're doing on your website with video...""

Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

Reply to
jon_banquer

They probably draw the line at tenth grade.

Reply to
John R. Carroll

That pretty much sums up Jon Banquer in a nutshell (heavy on the Nut). All anyone need do is stick around long enough and read Jon's posts about spreadsheets, tool libraries, Chaining, post processors, text editors, what an ASCII file is, macros, C++, Visual Basic, to know Jon hasn't a clue how to write a custom program, custom macro let alone a CAD/CAM program.

Jon you said a little over two years ago that you would be writing macros for probing as well as G12 & G13. Please post samples of your work Jon, not something you plagiarized but something YOU wrote. Just to be sure you actually wrote it/them add an explanation of how the macros work.

In Jon's post he imply's he could do it but just doesn't want to or hasn't the time. That misrepresents his knowledge and abilities just like he does on a regular basis about his relationships within the CAD/CAM community;

[ I'm committed to working with HSMWorks to doing just that. Shouldn't be too hard because their head of US operations and I see things in almost the exact same way and because HSMWorks is interested in what I have to say and wants to work with me. ]- Jon Banquer - [ Who I'm working with to deliver what truly will be the next generation of CAM:
formatting link
]-Jon Banquer- [ I understand why your shop did not go with HSMWorks. We have a lot of work to do. ] ? Jon Banquer [ Jon is not affiliated with HSMWorks ApS in any way and that we cannot control what people are writing on the web. Anybody can get evaluation licenses of HSMWorks and test it themselves. I hope this clarifies any doubt. ] - HSMWorks ApS - ********************* ============================================ ********************

I wrote a macro for Jon just over two years ago for G12/G13. Jon was complaining his Fanuc Controller didn't have it and he wanted it, needed it, etc. I told him that if he thought it was such a valuable option shut up and write a macro for it. I even wrote one and posted it to get him started.

J>Ignorant:

Jon,

You where the one not handling change and was complaining that the machine you were running didn't have G12 & G13 canned cycles. I told you to stop complaining about it and program the canned cycle yourself.

I even spent my time to help you J>

]

Tom

*

From: snipped-for-privacy@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.mach>Any one know the reason why Fanuc does not have a G12 / G13 like

Fanuc used to have this and for some reason dropped it many years ago.

If it's that valuable a feature for you why don't YOU write one for yourself?

Here is a start for you Jon.

You stated that your company uses a lot of macros so I did not use any #500 variables, I used local variables.

I left you some work if you want it to emulate G12, G13. If you want to make the macro modal like a normal G-Code canned cycle someone who knows how to program macros can easily do it.

If you want the option of CW or CCW that is easy enough to do. I laid it out for you and commented the macro much more than I normally do to help those reading it here in this forum to understand it without having to study it too closely.

There are a lot of ways to go about it, I am showing just one way. There are a lot of ways it can be improved to add more functionality but YOU have to START somewhere and I am not going to do ALL the work for you.

If your machine supports it you can call this 9000 program (macro) two ways.

G65 P9013 X Y Z I D R F Q

or

G113 X Y Z I D R F Q

******************************************

If you want to see how this macro works you can download a trial version of NCPlot at:

formatting link
***********************************************I just wrote this macro and have not tested it.

***********************************************

O0001 (TEST SUB-PROGRAM MACRO) G40 G17 G80 G90 G49 G20 G54 G94 M6 T1 S2500 M03 G00 X0.0 Y0.0 /M08 G43 H1 Z1.0 G65 P9013 X0.0 Y0.0 Z-1.0 I10.0 D.5 R.2 F10.0 Q3.0 G00 Z1.0 M9 G40 G0 Z4.0 M5 G91 G28 Z.0 M30

% O9013 (CCW CIRCLE WITH RADIUS LEAD IN/OUT) (SIMILAR TO G13 BUT NOT THE SAME AS) (RADIUS LEAD IN AND OUT IS HALF THE HOLE RADIUS)

(ERROR CHECKING AND ALARM MESSAGES) IF [#17LT0] THEN #3000=3 (PLUNGE FEEDRATE Q LESS THAN ZERO) IF [#9LE0] THEN #3000=4 (NO FEEDRATE GIVEN) IF [#4LE0] THEN #3000=5 (NO HOLE DIAMETER GIVEN) IF [#7LE0] THEN #3000=6 (NO TOOL DIAMETER GIVEN) IF [#4LE#7] THEN #3000=7 (TOOL DIA. TOO LARGE) IF [#24LT0] THEN #3000=8 (NO X LOCATION GIVEN) IF [#24LT0] THEN #3000=9 (NO Y LOCATION GIVEN) IF [#26EQ#0] THEN #3000=10 (NO Z HOLE DEPTH GIVEN) IF [#18LT0] THEN #3000=11 (NO CLEAR POINT GIVEN) IF [#18LT#26] THEN #3000=12 (RAPID CLEAR LT HOLE DEPTH)

#8=#4003 (G90/G91 STORE CURRENT MODE) #1=#5003 (STORE CURENT Z POS.) #2=[#26-#18] (CALCULATE INCREMENTAL Z DEPTH) #5=[[#4-#7]/2] (SUBTRACT TOOL DIA FROM HOLE DIAMETER CONVERT DIAMETER TO RADIUS) #6=#5/2 (LEAD IN AND OUT 1/2 CIRCLE RADIUS)

IF[#17GT0]THEN#100=1(IF Q IS LARGER THAN 0 FEED TO DEPTH) IF[#17EQ0]THEN#100=0(IF Q IS 0 RAPID TO DEPTH) IF[#17LT0]THEN #3000=1(PLUNGE FEED WRONG Q VALUE)

G#8G0X#24Y#25 (G90/G91 RAPID TO HOLE CENTER) G0Z#18 (RAPID TO CLEAR Z POINT) IF[#17GT0] THEN GOTO1 (IF FEEDING TO Z DEPTH GOTO N1) IF[#17EQ0] THEN GOTO2 (IF RAPID TO Z DEPTH GO TO N2) N1 F#17 (PLUNGE FEED RATE) N2 G91 G#100 Z#2 (RAPID OR FEED TO Z END DEPTH) G91G3X#5Y0I#6J0F#9 (RADIUS LEAD IN WITH FEED RATE) G3I-#5 (FULL CIRCLE) G90G3X#24Y#25I-#6J0 (RADIUS LEAD OUT BACK TO START POSITION) G0G90Z[#1] (RAPID TO INITIAL POINT) G[#8] (G CODE BACK TO PREV. G90/91) M99 %

YOU MUST SPECIFY X, Y, Z, I, D, R, F AND Q VALUES IN SUB-PROGRAM CALL OR IT WILL GENERATE AN ERROR.

MAIN PROGRAM CAN BE ABSOLUTE OR INCREMENTAL POSITIONING.

MACRO STORES G90/91 SETTING, RUNS THE MACRO THEN RESETS BACK TO STORED MODE BEFORE RETURNING TO MAIN PROGRAM.

(X Y POSITION TO CENTER OF HOLE) (Z DEPTH/END) (I HOLE DIAMETER) (D TOOL DIAMETER) (R RAPID START/END POSITION) (F FEED RATE FOR CIRCLE) (Q PLUNGE FEED, IF Q=0.0 WILL RAPID TO DEPTH)

Tom ]

*************************** [ From: snipped-for-privacy@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.mach>"If it's that valuable a feature for you why don't YOU write one for >yourself?"

Well I did give you a start.....lol.

I will be editing the macro for my own use to make it emulate G13/12 options, will make it modal and add a loop so it can run multiple DOC passes if needs be.

Tom ]

[ >Tom:

Bob,

Well you went to a good source, Tim is a great programmer.

If Parameter #6053 = 13 G13 will execute the macro (Program Number O9013)

*****************************

Make #6054=13 Change macro program number to O9014. G13 will execute the macro pgm O9014.

This is great stuff and way under utilized IMO.

It's a simple thing to do, you want G13, G12 and don't have it? No need to complain just program it. Got a good idea for a custom G Code, program it. ]

Reply to
brewertr

ROFLMAO........those poor guys are clueless.......priceless....

Someone has to be praying no one actually reads anything on the blog other than their quote.....for surely they didn't do their homework.

Last time this happened to Jon it blew up in his face. You know Jon, your Novedge "interview".

-- Tom

formatting link

Reply to
brewertr

I always wonder if Mike regrets suggesting that Novedge interview "Le Infant Terrible".

Reply to
Half-Nutz

formatting link
"Dave Thomson here from In-House Solutions. We own the rights to the Handbook series, and have been publishing the materials for some time.

First of all let me say that I=92m impressed with this style of feedback. We=92re extremely open to continuous improvement of our learning materials. Specific constructive criticism of our materials, with the goal of improvement over time, is invaluable. Your comments on the WCS are bang on. It=92s a very misunderstood, and often abused area of the software. As a multi-axis post developer, we see the WCS used where a toolplane should be used. The WCS should represent the orientation of the part as held on the machine for a specific setup.

So Jon, thanks for your efforts here. I=92ll put the feedback into the hands of our authors for consideration. My hope is that you=92ll be encouraged by the changes that we implement, and continue to put forth this type of effort."

Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

Reply to
jon_banquer

"UPDATE -- July 8, 2007 -- I had to close this blog post to further comments and to remove the personal attacks between Jon and some other newsgroups readers. Before the interview, I made an agreement with Jon about the style of the interview and the way to handle it. Jon didn=92t respect our agreement, posting comments under fake names. Jon=92s authentic and fake comments are all posted from the same IP address,

**.****.***.**. I can now see that my trust in Jon was misplaced." - Franco Folini
Reply to
Joe788

formatting link
"John

Firstly keep up the good work. I am hoping for some advice on a Gold partner CAM addin for solidworks. Previously I have used Pro-E with Pro-mfg which although limited in some areas was great for my application. Especially the associativity and the ability to copy and retain CAM data. I now work for another company doing very similar work where we copy donor parts and modify them to suit a new project using solidworks. I=92ve looked at Camworks which was very =93trick=94 but fell down on some basics like machining multi part assemblies. SolidCam looks good but I=92m not keen on the extra files created and copying can be complicated. At present I=92m looking at HSMWorks which seems great at associativity and copying but seems a bit limited in functionallity noticably 2D Pocketing. I would be greatful for any advice on these and any others you have seen.

Regards

Alenby"

Reply to
jon_banquer

formatting link

"I Teach CAM at a community college, but can not find a text book that is not half filled with drafting exercises. I don=92t care about creating geometry or surfaces that is what CAD software is for, in my class we spend the first two weeks using the drafting tools to create geometry. The next 14 weeks are spent importing CAD files & adding machining operations to the geometry. The text book authors should delete all the drafting fluff from the books and either reduce the price or add advanced topics to the text.

Robert Tosch CNC CAD/CAM Instructor Alpena Community College"

Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

Reply to
jon_banquer

On Franco Folini / Novedge

formatting link

Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

Reply to
jon_banquer

Why are you pasting that comment in this topic? Besides that, the guy who made it is apparently as uninformed as you are if he thinks HSMWorks pocketing is limited. But then again, nobody ever accused you of actually understanding or using the products you blabber constantly about.

Reply to
Joe788

Kirk,

Here is a starter for you.

formatting link

Here is the other end of the pipeline of good people looking for good jobs.

formatting link

With the shrinking job market I can't understand why you are having such a problem finding good employees. I think you are trying to create every employee in your image.and in the long run you are letting a number of potentially good employees get away from you.. Many of your job requirments are bs as with a lot of big corporations. As long as I think the employee is able to do one job and make the company money I would hire him or her. I would not try to cram a bunch of useless math and other struff on them but make them want to advance on their own effort.

As far as age, if you limit you ages for hiring you also limit your source of good talent. I have one person working who is 69 years old. He has work habits better than most people and is an asset to my company. I have a couple of other people I know getting ready to retire at some other companys and want to work part time for me when they retire. They have the training, experience and good work ethics that will make the company money, and isnt that the object of hiring someone.

I sense a negative attitude that all young people are selfserving juviniles, yes a lot of them are but there are gems out there that you have to find without discouraging them before they take an interest in the machining industry. If you want someone to clean the toilets or the floor, advertise for a janitor. If I were put in that situation I would clean your crap once and then tell you from then on to do it yourself but then that is why I have always had my own company. Money is not the major motivation for many people, enjoyment of work is a big factor; sense of accomplishment in what they are doing.

By the way, your salary offerings are not any better than most bigger companys in our area, which is an hour north of you and blessed with a lot less expensive cost of living.

good luck,

John

Reply to
John

Jon,

It is amazing to me that you, a person who keeps complaining about lack of documentation is proposing that MasterCAM authors should ONLY provide information on only half the product.

Then there is a supposed educator complaining that he can only find textbooks that covers the whole program. An educator that proposes the authors delete half the book. Documentation half the program is "FLUFF" ????? WTF ????

-- Tom

formatting link

Reply to
brewertr

John wrote: >

Thanks for the links, John. I'll check them out tomorrow morning first thing. And thanks too for your thoughts. You're wrong about the negative attitude, though. If I felt that way, I'd never have started this. I LIKE teaching. And I love to see kids learning and growing, and experiening the things that turned me on when it was all new and mysterious to me. But I want to do this right, not just have fun at it.

Please understand that this program isn't all we do in terms of hiring. We run ads constantly on Careerbuilder, Monster, and all the other major job sites, looking for experienced programmers, operators, setup people, QC, and more. Look at the "careers" section of

formatting link
just for a sampling. And every headhunter on Earth knows he'll get an instant commission if finds us someone, rather than having to push and sell candidates like he'd do with companies that are slow right now, or being conservative. We even pay serious bounties to existing employees for referrals that work out.

And we certainly don't discriminate about age, or try to find superheroes when all we need are good skills. In the past year, we've hired a dozen (literally) people, ages probably from 25 to 50, who had good looking resume's, and who said they could do the job. Set up a Mazak Multiplex with a pre-existing program and tooling sheet for a repeat job. Operate a Star CNC Swiss type that's already making good parts. Step through a new program that's mostly ready to run, and tweak it to make five parts for FAI. Change inserts or reamers when they get dull, and adjust them to get good parts. Load bar feeders and keep the chip baskets clean. Check parts often enough so the machine's aren't running for an hour with a broken tap or an oversized groove. Seriously, that's all we're asking for.

We had one guy, maybe 40 years old, with boatloads of experience on a Multiplex. Gave him a test, checked his references, and all. We put him on one machine, day shift, so there's no scrambling or distractions, and lots of people around to answer questions, or help if he needed something. In a month, he crashed turrets into both spindles, mashed one of the tool eyes, spent boatloads of money on fried tools, and didn't make enough real production to pay for the coffee he drank, let alone wages and benefits. Had one similar on the Star machines maybe a year ago. Gave him one machine he said he knew, and a job that he said he'd done before at another company. It was maybe a 10 hour setup. He spent four days, crashed the machine so bad I had to do a complete alignment, and never did make a part that even looked right to the naked eye. We hired someone in his 30's two weeks ago. Lots of machining experience; but never worked on a Mazak Integrex or a Matrix control. So we tried him out for a week, decided he might be worth some risk, and sent him to Mazak school for this week at our expense. The jury's still out on him; but we're trying. We really are.

With so little luck, and so many people who just aren't as good as they think, we've decided to grow our own skill because we have to. The company is passing up work, and sometimes struggling to do what we already have, just because we can't find people.

The training program isn't designed to make kids into little programmable robots. But I'm convinced that that HAVE to spend time on fundamentals before they can learn the good stuff. You learned to count before you learned to do arithmetic. And you had to be good at arithmetic before algebra or trig could possibly make any sense. We're applying the same logic to machining. I'm not going to hope that someone knows something. I'm going to make sure. If you need to know ten things in order to perform a certain job, and you already know five of them, I'm going to teach you all ten anyway. Not because I want to bore you or hold you back; but because I don't know WHICH things you're missing, and you might not either. I can risk boring you a bit with things you don't need, or I can risk letting you do something you're not fully prepared for, and watch you crash and burn. A little bit of boredom is way better than learning things the hard way. NOTHING will break a person's spirit as quickly as that kind of reality check.

Obviously, we'll move people along as quickly as we can. The sooner they can fill our needs, the better it is for the company, our customers, our trainees, and everybody else you can think of. Holding back has NO benefits. But going too fast, or skipping things, will waste the students' time a lot worse than a bit of extra careful training.

I won't do it perfectly; but somehow, I'm going to do it and make it work.

KG

Reply to
Kirk Gordon

If you are running under ISO system every operation should have a detailed instruction on how to complete the operation, in process inspection of the part and completion inspection procedure. Resumes are fairy tales in most instances. Job history and how often and why an applicant changed jobs is more important in my opinion. I had one applicant that had a fantastic resume. I asked him what cnc controls he ran.... he didn't know. You would think the big name on the front of the control would be engrained in his brain. How the applicant fills out the application for employment is more important to me than what he puts on it. In effect it is his first work in process and how he handles it indicates to a great extent how he would handle work in the shop.

To paraphrase someone before me. A good leader can take average people and make a winning team out of them , A bad leader can take the best team and lose the game.

I would recommend having the trainee learn one thing well. run one machine with the proper supervision until he can be let go on that machine. Let him get the confidence on that machine;. Teach him about the machine, how to take care of it, how to check the alignment and reset it if it goes out. The only way you can be sure he knows about that machine is if he has been trained on it. It doesn't take long to know if he is worth spending time on.

Just a thought, I was working in a plant that was closing and they had hired some temp workers to do a job. They made a good imprression on me for several reasons. The did the jobs they were assigned very efficiently, they were polite, and they were neat. You might get in touch with one of the temp employment agencys for workers. A .lot of good people use temp agencys to find good jobs. This also goes for employers too. Hire a temp and if you like his work make him an offer of a perminent position.

John

Reply to
John

I'll speculate that perhaps your 2nd largest challenge will other companies will hire away the people you train. In yee olden days when apprenticeships were the norm, perhaps the field was more level because if you lost some apprentices to another company, you'd a;sp pick some up from other companies and it would all balance out.

Nowadays a company that invests in apprentices will lose out because other companies will find it more economical to hire them away rather than train them.

It's good that you are laying out the entire career path pay scale from $9 to $30 (in today's dollars). Perhaps there should be some kind of "non-portable" long term equity sweetener to keep them from jumping ship. If not ownership in the business, then perhaps some kind of retirement system - but not 401k/portable/transferable?

I would also speculate that most 18-22 year olds aren't thinking about retirement plans. And perhaps societally, the old school perspective of "you are going to do this for many months even though you did it perfectly in the first few weeks" won't fly anymore.

Maybe nowadays, once the new recruit demonstrates perfection in a menial task say 12 times, they get the widened scope. Making them rinse/repeat for many months more, may drive them away. Whereas decades ago, all apprentices probably knew that months of boredom was the standard.

May be some good press/media buzz will also help your program appear glamourous to the youngings. And it certainly helps you that the economy is pounded and jobs are scarce.

Reply to
jj

Kind of amazing how you spin it and squeeze so many lies into such a small space Jon.

-- Tom

formatting link

Reply to
brewertr

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.