Congrats on +1000 thad, I am still learning here everyday also hopefully by the time i hit 1k I can answer more also

I started back in 1985. I didn’t like going to high school, so I figured if I went to high school in the morning and vocational school in the afternoon that would make my days go better. When I went to apply for vocational school I wanted to go into Auto Mechanics but there were no openings. My counselor told me the only opening was Machine Trades. Not knowing what it was I figured what the hell I was just looking to skate through my last couple years anyhow. I always figured I would be a Fireman like my dad. What a great job only working 7 to 9 days a month (24 hour shifts though). When I got out of school I went to work in a jig grinding shop figuring this was just going to tied me over till I got on the force. I didn’t last long there I was more interested in partying every night then getting to work the next day. After moving from shop to shop for a few years I landed a job in a production shop. The work was boring but easy. After a couple years there I was doing all the setups and program editing but never even got to see the programmer do his job. He kept that a big secret. This is somewhere around 1993 when computers were really starting to become popular and a friend of mine told me he could get me a copy of bobcad. I figured why not I was just going to use it at home to figure out how these things worked. So I went out and bought a computer and loaded the software. I was playing with it for a couple weeks and really getting frustrated because I had no materials on the software and didn’t know any of the terminology. Finally I brought the software to work and asked the programmer to load it and show me how it worked. He did that and showed me the basics on it but still would not open the company’s software when I was around. One day he got really pissed after a good old fashioned a$$chewing from the boss and left and never came back. I would still go in his office everyday at lunch and play with bobcad drawing company parts when the president walked in and asked what I was doing. After I explained it to him he told me to quit screwing around and threw some MC books at me and told me to learn something useful. He gave me a print of a part we currently made and told me I had 1 week to program it so he could compare it with the program that was currently running. I had the program done in 3 days and it actually ran more efficient and I got the job. From there I moved to the job I have now where I had to start all over as a lathe operator but quickly moved up to programming with MC once again

congrats millman, glad to hear everything went well

thanks for your reply. our dnc system is down and i have to manually put a program into the machine. I was just hoping to shorten the program up without having to redo the toolpath.

Is there a simple way to convert a long hand toolpath to canned text? I know if i picked canned text when i selected the geometry i could convert it to long hand but i need to go the other way. Thanks in advance [ 12-01-2003, 12:02 AM: Message edited by: dan m ]

quote: How maney of your wifes pee and mone about the chips you bring home? My wife goes for sour cream and onions

I really like working with solids. If i'm not importing them i'm creating them. It looks like i'm working so much harder to my bosses (lol). What I have found with lathe is if there is a flat or off center hole in the plain your tool is trying to cut it will not work. So i go into side view and rotate the part so there is nothing in the way (flats or off center holes). after that everything works perfectly for me. hth

happens here all the time. I sure love the compare option. Of course the guys on the floor always claim I changed the main program after they received the junk one. I guess thats why my boss always says "to be a programmer you have to have broad shoulders" lucky for me he is a ex programmer

Millman I understand where you are coming from but don't punish all new people because of 1 a$$hole like this. This forum has been very helpful to me and a lot of others. I would really hate to see 1 bad apple ruin it for others. And he has made it more than obvious he has no glue of what he is talking about. That’s just my .02 worth

quote: M4 Z.1 unscrew old light bulb M3 z-1.0 screw in new light bulb Is there a recommended feed rate?

If it was really critical we used to centerdrill, drill, endmill, ream, than tap

+100000000000000000000 to all

Thanks for the help. I did have to set the machines to asci

I work in a union shop so I must say I have been very lucky. It doesn't matter what you know or what you do just when you got hired in. So by me being the only lathe programmer doesn't mean anything when my number comes up it's time to go. I have seen a lot of good talented people go out the door and a lot of lazy people hold their jobs. At one point we had 38 people layed off in our dept. now where down to 14. It looks like thing are picking up for us. When I hired in back in 95 we were working 7 days a week 12 hours a day if we wanted now were down to 40 hrs. A big pay cut without the over time but I am lucky compared to most. I got here 4 mos. ahead of the last guy layed off. To everyone out there struggling I hope things get better for you soon.

Tony welcome to the forum

I did a search and there is alot covered under communications but i didn't find what i was looking for. The problem i am having is when i receive a program back from the machine (mori with fanuc control) it removes the o and replaces it with : it also takes the spaces out. this happens on 2 of our 3 moris. on the 3rd mori all the parameters are the same and the program comes back fine. We are using Cimnet as our dnc server. Does it make sence that this is in the cable wiring? Thanks in Advance

quote: we actualy had 3 guys changing a set of florecents .One went up the ladder , one held the new bulbs and one took the old ones.sounds to me like you were 1 guy short. there should have been 2 guys up ladders, 1 on each end to make sure they got the bulb in right

congrats on 1k dave and thanks for providing a place to get after hour help.

Mick, You can have it. We had the tech from Mazak come out to show us how to use it and after 1 look at it he told us it wasn't worth the trouble. According to him it's to old and not reliable like the new one's. Harry, Thanks for the code there was alot of m codes our machine dont like but it got me pointed in the right direction (i think so far). I appreciate all the help from everyone out here on all my questions. It's used to be hard to get things done on third shift till I found this forum.

Thanks Harry, I appreciate your reply. I will probably try it tomarrow night. We have a Y axsis but we don't use it. Your code should give me a place to start.

Robk, that worked great. Thanks

Thanks for the replys, For some reason are machine don't understand the following lines that my post puts out G28 Y0 G28 U0 W0 I wonder if there needs to be a G91 in there? It also don't like the Y moves at all so I delete them out. My tool changer looks like T0404.00 when it should look like T0404.9 These are just some of the things, thats why I asked if some one had code I could try because I'm shooting in the dark at what this machine likes and dislikes.

Hi All, Let me start by saying I don't need a post. What I have is a 1987 Mazak Integrex 40-atc m/c turning center. We are looking to do more g-code programming on the machine and have a post but the machine don't like the all the code my post puts out. There are some g-code errors and things of that nature. What I was wondering is if someone could send me a short program that there integrex uses preferably with a turning and milling op. so I can try it and try to figure out where to start editing my post. Any help would be appreciated.

This is probably a stupid question but how do you load the blue icons?

There’s nothing I can say that hasn't already been said. Be safe everyone and our prayers are with you. Dan