Pretty cool, I'll have to try and convince my boss to get one then I can borrow it on the weekends when I do my motocross and hare scramble races.

Wish I had know about that stuff a few years ago. We had a job with small ID grooves and the only way we could inspect them was to cut every fifth part or so in half and check them on a comparator.

We dont have any in house but I was looking a little while back. Kellenberger and Studer are both top end machines but were way more then we needed. The griding shop I subbed my work out to told me to look at Supertec. He had a couple of them and told me they were more then adequate machines for the type of work we had and about 1/4 the price.

Our newest VF-1 has this option I haven't had any trouble with it. It saves time over having to go thru the VQC menus

I ran into this same issue the other day. The other programmer I work with walked me thru it, but it's good to have a couple other examples to reference.

We have a couple Fanuc WEDM and can hold .0002 without much effort. Less then .0001 is possible but may take a few test parts to dial in your settings. The good thing I have found with wire machines is that they are very repeatable(less variables to worry about, tool condition, run out clamping force, etc.). If you have recurring work save whatever tweaks you made to the settings and the next time you will be good to go.

I really enjoy the challenges of machining and programming but it does seem to be an under-valued trade. $20-$25 an hour seems to be the max in my area and like John said that puts you at a point of living paycheck to paycheck when trying to support a family.

BTW I saw an add in the paper for a grocery store manager for $23 an hour was almost temped to apply it would have cut my commute by 40 mins LOL!

We've moved most of our stuff to Sandvik, mostly due to the support we get from our sales rep. I agree the seminars they put on make it worth paying a little more for tooling.

Lots of good tips guys. New to the forum, I've been machining for over 20 years but fairly new to Mastercam just trying to find as much info as I can