I'm not really big on posting salaries in a public forum personally, but to each their own. I always say; "don't like what you make, negotiate better!" Just kidding... mostly. I was privy to listen in on a discussion probably 4 years ago involving another AE that worked for a competitor about his salary. What I deduced from the conversation; he's a clock puncher; 8 to 5 M-F and that's it, he had no 5-Axis experience (running OR programming), he had no automation integration experience, he had no meaningful CAD/CAM experience, he had very little to no in-process probing experience, he had no CAV experience, very little under the hood CNC Control experience, etc., etc., etc., If I had to guess, I'd say he's probably within a year or so for retirement today, though with current economic (read 401k losses) conditions, perhaps not. Anyway, he did all his programming manually and used MACRO programming for everything. Cool skillset back in the 80's, 90's and maybe even EARLY EARLY 2000's, but, that just isn't going to come anywhere near close to cutting it these days. He's like decades behind his customers. Honestly, if you're not at least keeping pace with what your customers are doing, that's a BAD place to be because before you know it it's 2022 and you're still programming with notepad feeling relevant and everyone else in the room is looking at you like "...WTF dude, you can't even read CAD data...". Moral of the story; Keep your skills relevant. Keep your software skills up to date. If you're more than one version behind you're too far behind. Keep your function skills up to date and relevant. Always be moving forward. Be a voracious learner. Find a company that values tenacity. And be tenacious. Or don't and just try to compete against the guys that are, and let us know how that's working out for you so at the bare minimum you can be a cautionary tale for the rest of us.

There's exceptions to every rule. #StillMovinOnUp The reality of the wage situation, if you want to maximize your earning potential, learn things that alter the courses of work your company can do. That puts you in a strong bargaining position for serious money. That said, if the company you work for only makes $5.00 widgets and hootus connectors, your wage earning potential will not be great unless you can get them to take on the $1,000+/part jobs, that you can get through the shop. Oh, and NEVER stop learning because if you do, you'll stop earning. JM2CFWIW

The latest MC Version can't read the latest Inventor files. You'll need to read in a neutral file like STEP.

@rgrin , the reality of the situation is as the old axiom goes; "There are no perfect solutions, only tradeoffs." I think it was Thomas Sowell that said it. Touch style tool measurement systems are faster and more reliable than laser systems, but there are a number of things that make them not fit for every application. Lasers tool measurement systems are awesome, you can check tool profiles, broken teeth, tool radius/diameter, etc... but... they are slower, they are susceptible to environmental issues (coolant mist, through tool coolant drips/drainage, etc...), built up edge, chips, tool coatings, high polish tools, etc...

Indeed. Honestly, I'd never own a 4-Axis OR 5-Axis without G68.2 It is WAY too powerful a function to not have.

That is G68.2 not G68 (on a FANUC) Two completely different options and functions. G68 is coordinate rotation/3D Coordinate Conversion. G68.2 is Tilted Work Plane. G68 does not require the configuration of machine kinematic parameters. G68.2 does require the kinematic parameters (#19700-#19705 for table/table machines).

Indeed Mike, indeed.

Hate to break it to you Mark but I've spent the last 15+ years following up on the 5-Axis FANUC controlled Mori support here in Southern California when they go with a Matsuura they should have bought in the 1st place In all seriousness, what I've run into in roughly a dozen cases where there has been the need to untrain the incorrect information about how the functions work together programmers from what they learned from either the Ellison or the Mori Applications Engineer, or I've needed to make parameter change suggestions for the customer so the functions work properly. Maybe it's a different story on the Siemens machines.... that's been my experience... at least in SoCal.

Thank you. \-8-)

Follow the link in the post above from @mwearne

Not sure I'd want to update a 2008 era post.

Support, support, support. Even large nationwide/worldwide companies have dealers that are weak and others that are strong. I have a customer with operations in multiple states(same dealer, different territories) , for one of their machines (EDM) the support in one state is superb, and the support in the other is nearly non-existent, bordering on dreadful.

As an aside; "thermal issues"... the machine tool's thermal management is tied to the machine only. Not tied to part thermal growth. Not tied to workholding thermal growth, not tied to spindle taper expansion. Anyone that has "thermal issues" regardless of machine program from center of rotation?

No need to apologize. They are two different machines.

Using probing on just about any machine tool can solve A LOT of challenges.

G68 has nothing to do with Center Of Rotation per se and G68.2 allow you the ability to track and program nowhere near Center of Rotation. In G68, the X, Y, and Z on the function call are the point about which you are rotating your coordinates. The R is the rotation angle. In G68.2 the X, Y, and Z are the relationship to the part origin the following program section beforenitnis canceled. The I, J, and K are Euler angles (if no P is specified) and they the rotations around Original Orientation Z, Original Orientation X, new Orientation Z to calculate the new orientations. If there is a P (can't recall the number off hand) then you can specify the order of rotation Q123 would be rotation around X, Y, and Z. Q321 would be Z, Y,and X. etc... G68.2 relies on parameters to define the machine kinematics. Combine that with a work offset and the control calculates every position in every orientation and rotation. HTH

For me to go from 64GB to 128GB on my rig (see siggy) is $185.28 I like Crucial. https://www.crucial.com/store/systemscanner Looking at it... I'm going to seriously consider making the jump myself. I'm working on a couple simulation projects that are taking my RAM usage up past 60GB. I was thinking it was going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $300. Food for thought.

500mm table ... Matsuura MX-850 won't break the bank... relatively speaking of course. In your spreadsheet/list, support should be weighted heavily. Not just service because that should be a given, but Applications Engineering support. The people that will train you how to maximize your significant investment. There are A LOT of companies out there selling sophisticated equipment that don't have the slightest clue how to really drive the machine tool. They don't know even well programming enough to be able to give you basic guidelines for tolerances, point spacing, and high speed processing modes the control is capable of. When it comes down to teaching you about all the functions, why, were and when you should use them, how/why to implement probing into your process(es)etc... it really pays to look for a partnership in that arena and that your machine tool dealer's technical staff is up to snuff to effectively teach you these things and more.

The uhhhhhh "traffic fatality" is in reference to a CAD model import that results in a near useless model. Seemingly (at least in cases where I tend to experience them) when it happens, "... it's the only model we have and we can't ask the customer for another file...". Which in translation means the part is WAY late, we lied to our customer about where it's at in process, the customer doesn't know that their vendor farmed it out, or, they are just to lazy to ask for a new model.

Until there's a traffic fatality, then my bike kicks my car's ***. <laughter> In all seriousness, each tool has it's place and nothing but seat time/practice/trial and error helps a programmer discern which tool is the most appropriate for any given task.

32 is a little thin unless you're doing 2D work.

Imagine to their surprise how much that RAM costs BECAUSE they don't buy it. Purchases can certainly cost money. But they only cost once, but non-purchases like that??? Those. They cost over and over, and over, and over again. EVERY. SINGLE. OPERATION. EVERY. SINGLE PROJECT. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Is Parameter #1604.0 = 1? At this stage, it is best to not change the decimal behavior by parameter as it may affect other things. Think "Law of Unintended Consequences". Using decimals will be your best bet. Also, typically when I need to pass arguments I'll use #1-#33 just to grab the values then in my MACRO I store them off from #161-#193 to not lose track or have them change or reset.

#1324 and #1325

MasterCAM "can" do drawings but it's painful. It's NOT for doing full on GD&T. It just isn't. THis is the arena of SolidWorks, Inventor, Creo, CATIA, NX, etc... ya know... CAD software. That GD&T Fonts are available and you can just insert them as text in notes. Here's what I've got. GDT Fonts.zip