6 replies to this topic

[Dave Crevie]

This will raise an "ugh" from some of the old time machinists.

 

https://youtu.be/aDXvyRd3JY4?si=vKuHK4Vo6wLGKUzJ 

[Bill from NH]

! wonder what advancements they've made in the last 11 years; I'm going back to my Unimat SL now.

[Dave Crevie]

Well, I guess the biggest advancement was 5-axis controls.
The next time you get an order for 250,000 special fasteners, let me know how long it took you to turn those out on your Unimat. 😂
CNC technology wasn't developed for the slot racer to make a pair of wheels. It was developed to reduce the cost of making products for the every day consumer. I posted that video because I thought some guys might be interested in the history behind it.

[Bill from NH]

It was interesting to see how these numerical controls speeded up all sorts of different operations. I liked how they didn't read tape line-by-line but by the "page or block." That video was 11 years old; I would expect that a leading-edge company such as Sperry would have made many enhancements or improvements to their product during a 10-year period. My Unimat doesn't see much use these days but is always available when I need it. I'm toying with the idea of building a simple wooden wood-turning lathe. I have a few chisel handles to replace on some that once belonged to my great-grandfather. I have mahogany & ironwood for the handles, but the later might be too hard to turn by hand.

[Dave Crevie]

I was working for Vulcan Tools, (competitor to Snap-On) when I was introduced to NC machine controls. I went into it kicking and screaming all the way. I saw it as something that was going to put me, and many others, out of a job. Vulcan sent a group of machinists and toolmakers to school (Triton) to learn the technology. I declined to go. Six months later, they sent a second group and it was go or find a new job. I struggled with it some. But as I got more comfortable with it, I realized that it was more of an enhancement than a job stealer. I've stayed on top of it ever since. 

 

I really got over the hump when I got into 3-axis CNC. I used to do a lot of hand engraving in molds. 3-axis would let me do in an afternoon what would have taken a week or more by hand. To be able to tell a customer he could pick up his finished mold the next day gave me a huge advantage over the other mold shops that would take weeks to finish the job.  

 

Wood turning is great fun. My father was deep into it. He used it to "unwind" after a tough day at the iron foundry. The internet is loaded with old metal lathes for sale. These are no longer any use for working metal, but make great wood lathes. A little ingenuity to fit the wood turning tooling, and you are all set.

[Phil Hackett]

I was at LA Trade Tech college for "Manufacturing Technology"... in 1977 a representative from the COMPACT II CAM-software company came by and gave a demonstration of their product. He connected a terminal & plotter to the phone line and downloaded a program from Dallas, Texas (IIRC it was BF Goodrich aerospace) and plotted and modified the program at our classroom. This was like science fiction stuff at the time (the modem was one of those where the phone receiver was placed in a cradle). It was probably 300 baud because it took a while.

 

He showed the program (text) on the screen and then plotted the program then modified it and re-plotted the newly modded part. Again, this was like science fiction when all we had at the time were Friden Flexowriters and editing either was a PITA or reentering the code to paper tape.

 

It also did away with the manual calculations on drawings by allowing a description of the machined features by a sorta-English code. It was powerful stuff in those days and I suspect there's places still using it (if COMPACT II even exists or made it over to PCs). We didn't have 3-axis NC machines in the school so the power of the language couldn't be truly demonstrated. 

 

No matter what, all those programs were translated to paper tape. I got so good at looking at the tape and understanding what was going on the school asked me to check programs when the Flexowriters were busy. It's a bit like IT guys that can read hex dumps. I hate NC tape.

[Dave Crevie]

"I hate NC tape".

So does everyone else. That's why no one uses it anymore. The company I retired from 13 years ago still had machines that loaded from floppies. They are all CD now. Or direct from CRT station.
One thing for sure. Old CNC programmers never die. They just become the ghost in the machine. I'm quite sure I will be buried with my laptop.