JasonB | 06/04/2022 11:45:24 |
![]() 25215 forum posts 3105 photos 1 articles | Same here, I've not used the wizards on the mill. If I do want something simple like to skim the top of a workholding block or drill a couple of holes to screw a part down I just use the jog as a glorified 3 axis power feed and the screen readout as my DRO. |
Another JohnS | 06/04/2022 13:47:08 |
842 forum posts 56 photos | Wizards on the mill. (or, non-MACH3 speak, "Conversational Programming" I got into CNC about a decade ago when I was convinced by the machinists at work. They produced prototypes of parts for defence, telecoms, satellites (although that lab also had one machinist). One of the guys and I got into a discussion when he was producing something for my work, and he was using conversational programming to do it. We discussed my workshop, yada, yada, yada and said my mill was manual, not CNC, as I did only one or two or maybe up to a dozen parts to a design. He said to me "how many manual mills do you see here? We only do the prototype; production is subcontracted out". The machine room was the size of a school auditorium. There were NO manual mills. On LinuxCNC, one either uses Tormach's Path Pilot, or, for those not with a Tormach machine, "Features" I think it is called. Andy Pugh did some good lathe macros for CNC lathes. Mach3 has "Wizards", I'm sure any CNC controller worth its price has an equivalent. Twiddling is fun, but, the last long lathe job I had, I would have died and gone to heaven to have a CNC "conversational programming" lathe; hours spent standing there slowly twiddling handles, was quite frankly mind-numbing! |
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