I find this all rather odd. I keep seeing all these posts for programmer positions down there in the USA, and by the sounds of it, the pay is extremely good for a skilled programmer.

However, up here in Ontario Canada, the pay for programmers is pretty much crap at most places. I can't tell you how many times a headhunter has called me and asked me if I was interested in a position that pays between $18-$20 an hour. Thats not just insulting, but it is downright impossible to provide for your family on that kind of pay.

What the heck is the deal here? Maybe I should move down to the States, because clearly we are getting screwed up here.

I agree. It totally depends on the person doing the training, but if he gets anyone like the tool that ran my training session then he won't get much of anything out of it.

Well your first problem was installing X6 to begin with.

It pretty much goes downhill from there.

If you have self trained yourself over the last 9 years, then I doubt very much if you will reap much of a benefit by taking a course now. Obviously you have been doing something right for the past 9 years. Maybe you will learn something of the more advanced surfacing paths, but I am sure you could have figured them out on your own anyways.

Mastercam is stable while the file is small -simple geometry ,couple of toolpathes

This is very true, the bigger the project, the worse the bugs become. But I have experienced problems with smaller, simply projects as well.

My favorite one lately is my HSM toolpaths randomly changing their Z heights for no particular reason. Thats a fun one.

I calculate it at, say for example Z-1.00. Looks good. Do a bit more work, post it out and find out it recalculated itself to z-0.20 for some reason. No big deal, it cuts higher, but when the next tool comes in not expecting all that extra material.... well, can you say BANG ?

Yeah, that sounds like your drive board is fried. I used to get those all the time and thats usually what it was.

Call up your friendly service guy and then hurry up and wait 1 week for the new board to come from Germany.

:EDIT:

 

if rapid dog legs, on your CNC, are a problem

 

(not software related)

They certainly can be. Only way to avoid any problems is to do a full retract above everything, but in my opinion thats a bit of a waste of valuable run time when you should be able to to a minimum retract to a set value, say 0.100", and do a high feedrate in a straight line to your next position, while avoiding any model surfaces at the same time. That would cut down on a whole lot of air time, especially on larger pieces.

No you Dont!

 

I have been cutting molds with 3 different softwares for the last 18 years and only since Mc(i started at X2)

have I had to worry about the code that the software is supposed to put out properly.

 

Like just to have the defaults on the safest variable would be nice, if rapid dog legs

are a problem the get the retract default to absolute, if using min distance then use a default

Feed of F300. not F10,000 is there even a cnc that has a 10,000 feed?

 

We not asking for miracles just version to version standard reasonable defaults and upgrading tools.

Amen to that brother. I fail to see the reason why MC wouldn't want some form of verification code in their software. It would give users a lot more confidence in the toopaths they are creating, instead of the hold your breath and cross your fingers approach we have now.

Also, I would really love a default retract distance and a point to point rapid feedrate to eliminate the dog-legs.

Never gonna happen though.

You shouldn't have to rely on a third party program to verify your toolpaths. Your CAM system should be able to do that for you.

It should be able to recognize that it has gouged the surface or solid model of your part.

It should be able to recognize that it will rapid into your part.

And you shouldn't have to spend hours back plotting like crazy just to see if there are any gouges.

Telling people to go out and get Vericut or some other piece of software is a total cop out.

They were fine till you turned up jackass!

Bite me you Foreigner !

I hear Micron makes a pretty good 5 Axis machine. Whatever you do though, stay away from DMG. Constantly having those thing fixed around here.

Yeah, unfortunately I figured that one out too. I was really hoping it would work too as it is very useful when doing 5 axis and larger type parts.

Oh well.

I am still amazed by how shocked you guys are.

If you go back into the operation and re-select the tool....does that help?

I think he doesn't want to have to do that. Unfortunately, there is no work around that I can see.

Your stuck with it the way it is I am afraid.

Just double check your tools, and bang your head against a wall when it screws you over.

We get a fair amount of parts that have 200+ operations, It's not that hard when you have 80-100 tool required for a single program and I'm just doing horizontal programming.

80-100 Tools for a single program ?? Good gawd man, what are you working on, an entire airplane?

Free fiss...

 

I wonder why I even get out of bed, I mean I may get killed pulling out of my driveway every morning.

 

Just sayin'

Thats what I keep telling my boss, but he doesn't seem to be buying it.

The guy I work with smokes and chews. He has to smoke outside but that isn't so much the part that bothers me. This guy smells like he doesn't wipe his a$$ properly and then you add the smell of smoke on top of that. There are some morning I'm surprised I don't gag. When I first came to this shop I was driving home and wondering what that horrible smell was, turns out it was me. I came in on my first Friday off and steam cleaned all of the chairs to get that smell of him out of them.

 

Then we had a fight over his chew. He would spit in every trashcan and metal bin available and in the process the spit would get all over the machines, toolboxes and on the floor. Our janitors were about ready to boycott emptying the trash cans because they were just too nasty. Well, he has to spit into spittoons now and police his own stuff. The machines are cleaner, the janitors are happier and except for him leaving his spittoons everywhere, everything seems much more sanitary.

That sounds disgusting. Honestly, why do you allow him to even work anywhere near people ? Why don't you build him a little shack out in the parking lot and segregate him away from everyone, that way the majority of the other employees are happier, and not just the janitors.

Nasty.....

Mine does.

Sorry, But I have never seen that before in my life. And I have posted out programs with the same tool number for totally different tools before a few times too.

I have used a few other cam packages and granted they may not be the super high dollar high end packages available but they have their issues as well. For instance, not even noticing that I have two different tools with the same tool number and it posts it out anyway.

Are you telling me MC is supposed to tell you if you have 2 tools set as the same number? Because this happens to me sometimes when I have to renumber tools and it just posts out with no warnings at all.

Actually it will make all my tools the same number if I tell it to and it doesn't make a peep about it.

I hardly find it unjustified for users to demand and expect improvments for something that they PAY FOR. If you gave your customer a piece of crap and told him it's "relatively close" to what he wanted, do you really think he would pay you ?

Buddy, its not as easy as just going out and buying new software. Companies have invested a whole pile of money and time and training in MC, so just up and moving to something else is very difficult if not downright impossible. Some places literally have thousands of repeat jobs that were programmed in MC, so reprogramming them is not an option. Most companies simply don't want to change pakages because of the expense and training involved in doing so.

And in my opinion, the complaining is not getting out of hand.... it is long overdue.

Hmmm.. Well this could just be a shot in the dark, but maybe one of your driver boards is acting up. That used to happen to me at least every 6 months or so. I would probably suggest swapping the board with another axis and see if the alarm changes to that axis.

You could always go back to writing out code by hand. You will probably get a better program too. Of course it may take you about a year to type it all out, but at least it will be right

SMOKERS SHOULD BE SHOT

Get bent... and I mean that in the most dis-respectful way possible

Smoking hasn't been allowed inside the workplace here for years. The place I work for took it one step further and banned smoking on the property at all. Down to the sidewalk they go. They are not even supposed to light up in their car in the parking lot, and this applies to any sub trades working on the properly also.

Is that even legal?

Not allowing them to smoke in their cars I mean.

Yeah you shouldn't have to. But when a one guy spends about 2 hrs a day on the can and everyone else starts complaining, what should you do?

 

Mike

I'll tell you what you can do, fire his lazy xxxx and hire someone that actually gives a crap about their job. I smoke myself, but I would never spend 2 hours in a day catching up on my fix. That's what break time is for.