Hello everyone,
I've been a CNC machinist for the past 30 years. Almost all of it on milling machines. Started out on OKK machining centers running off of punched tape. In the shop I worked in at the time, I would sit down with a print, calculator, & yellow legal pad. I'd decide on the tooling and fixturing, then write the program. The company secretary would then take the program & type it into a flexowriter, which would punch the tape as she typed. This method induce a lot of errors.
Nowadays, I'm working in a shop that has all HAAS machining centers. These are fantastic machines! Most of the programming is done right at the control on simple programs. We also use BobCAD & GibbsCAD for complex parts.
The reason I joined this forum is because I'm converting my Wholesale Tool x2 minimill to CNC. This is the same mill sold by, Grizzly, Harbor Freight, and others. I'm using the HobbyCNC Pro board 4 axis version, with the 200oz steppers on the X & Y axis. I'll be using a larger stepper for the Z axis, & another 200oz on the A axis. X & Y are all that are functional right now. I'm running Mach3 demo on a WinXP machine. I will probably switch over to EMC in the future, as Linux is my preferred OS.
I'm looking forward to gleaning as much information as possible from the users here who have already been down the same road.
Thanks, in advance for sharing your knowledge.
I've been a CNC machinist for the past 30 years. Almost all of it on milling machines. Started out on OKK machining centers running off of punched tape. In the shop I worked in at the time, I would sit down with a print, calculator, & yellow legal pad. I'd decide on the tooling and fixturing, then write the program. The company secretary would then take the program & type it into a flexowriter, which would punch the tape as she typed. This method induce a lot of errors.
Nowadays, I'm working in a shop that has all HAAS machining centers. These are fantastic machines! Most of the programming is done right at the control on simple programs. We also use BobCAD & GibbsCAD for complex parts.
The reason I joined this forum is because I'm converting my Wholesale Tool x2 minimill to CNC. This is the same mill sold by, Grizzly, Harbor Freight, and others. I'm using the HobbyCNC Pro board 4 axis version, with the 200oz steppers on the X & Y axis. I'll be using a larger stepper for the Z axis, & another 200oz on the A axis. X & Y are all that are functional right now. I'm running Mach3 demo on a WinXP machine. I will probably switch over to EMC in the future, as Linux is my preferred OS.
I'm looking forward to gleaning as much information as possible from the users here who have already been down the same road.
Thanks, in advance for sharing your knowledge.