Where have you guys learned This stuff? Script - Chooks

[Chad 73]

Where have you people learned script and chook language?? I have taken several solid attempts at learning this but continuosly fallen asleep due to not understanding what i am reading in the books. Very discouraged with my skills at learning this but still trying like hell!! How long have you been working at this as well?? Any tips on good books or web sites or anything else would be greatly appreciated. I've been with Mastercam for some 7 or so years and can do some pretty good post editing and very comfortable machine programming. Need help with script and Chook. Been reading up on C++ and Windows script.

Any advice?

 

[Bullines]

Personally speaking, I have a B.S. in Computer Science, which is where my software development foundation comes from. Before working at In-House Solutions, I knew next to nothing about CAM and CNC Programming (still don't know all that much) so most of that knowledge comes from co-workers. As for the C-Hooks themselves, I poured through the C-Hook documentation and headers a countless number of times, reviewed C-Hooks written by my predecesors and ask questions to the right people (many of whom frequent this forum ). Maybe Addison-Wesley will publish a C-Hook Pearls book one day HTH

[Müřlıń®]

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Been reading up on C++

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I started looking at that 10 years ago and decided programming was a WHOLE 'nother career entirely........

 

Nope, nope..... didn't want any part of that....heh

 

 

Murlin teh Simpleton....I'm just a layman.....and proud of it!!!

[bryan314]

In sorta reverse order. I did some vb programming a quite a few years back and vbscript is similar enough that I can muddle my way through it. My vbscript 'skills' are very rusty. Hopefully in time they'll get better.

 

Chooks I've been doing this approximately 3 years. I'm still learning. I would like to be farther along in my understanding of the kit than I am but I only program chooks part time. I have to do it in-between my 'real' job of toolpathing.

 

You don't have to know C++ the kit is straight C. The example files use C. The documentation does have an example of using C++.

 

If you don’t know C/C++ my suggestion is go take a C/C++ class at a local community college. It cheap. Better yet it’s free if your company will pay for it. You get one on one interaction with the teacher and other newbies. It a great way to get over that initial hump of learning the language. Another benefit is sometimes the college bookstore will have discounted versions of regular Microsoft visual c++. Not the crappy student edition. Our local one here one time was getting rid of a couple of their Enterprise or Professional editions for about $100.00. I believe one student ran to the bookstore when the teacher announced this in class. He got the last one.

 

How I learned?

 

Short answer: banged my head against the wall or on my desk until I started bleeding or passed out. Or both. After doing this for several days, weeks, months a chook would magically pop out.

 

longer answer: I read and re-read the documentation. I read the header files. They are not always the same. Header files are updated more frequently than the documentation and Cnc Software has limited resources and probably can't always get the documentation updated. Read through the example files. They contain a lot of information. Tried compiling some of the example files. Etc…

 

Banged my head a lot. Got frustrated. Swore, cursed, and received strange looks from coworkers. (Hi Kevin.) They put up with it since the end result usually saves them hours of work later on.

 

Eventually several people at Mastercam and on the forum were kind enough (and patient enough) to get me going. Eventually things started to fall into place.

 

One thing I found helpful was to print out all the doc files (yes I printed them all) and stick them in some 3 ring binders. This made it real helpful for adding notes and cross referencing the various structures and variables.

 

 

Good luck on your endeavors. If you have specific questions ask them. The worse you’ll get is a “I dunno”

 

Bryan

 

[ 07-30-2003, 09:21 PM: Message edited by: bryan314 ]

[steve f]

chad,

 

taking a class is a good start. I just started one a month ago with the intention of writing chooks and the smoke has started to clear already...it might save you alot of wasted time and effort and costs very little.

 

steve

[crazy^millman]

Well I am not as learned as the rest of them. I learned all of my post changes, rewrites of post and c-hook deveoplmet by trail and error and error and error and error if you get my point. I spent 4 weeks working on a fix for my 5 axis Thremwood at one place. It take time which is what most of us dont have in this day and age. I would suggest thinking about what you really want and need and spend the money having one of the pro's do it for you unless you like the challege of doing it. Good luck

 

Crazy Millman

[tpotenberg]

Where can I find the documentation for writing chooks?

[Thad]

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Where can I find the documentation for writing chooks?

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You can install the chook development kit that's on your MC install CD.

 

Thad

[John T.]

I programmed in basic back in the day (early 80's!), and now when I wanted to make a VBS setupsheet, that helped, but I learned most of what I needed to know from the great folk here on the forum. Also learned much from VBS books (which, unfortunately, are more geared to the web than applications) and the somewhat sparse documention for MC VBS.

Right now, my programming skills are rusty again. There are other things I could write, but there doesn't seem to be any demand in the shop here for them. I could do even better things if I could write Chooks, or even interface our vintage faroarm with mastercam.

 

John