CNC Programming

I been out of the cnc machining picture since 1998. I was reading through the job ads on craigslist and noticed how they are posted when looking for cnc programmers. The way I am interpretting the wanted listings is that if you can run one cnc machine, you can run all of them. Back when I ran CNC, it was a FADAL 40x20 with a DOS based machining program. It took me a long time to learn and that was only good for that one machine. Are all the cnc machines running a standard across the board software now? I ask because I was thinking of going back to work part time at a machine shop with hopes of running some cnc machines. I am learning fusion 360 that is taught on titans of cnc academy website. Am I just wasting my time here? Do I need to go to junior college and take cnc machine shop classes?

webphut said:

I been out of the cnc machining picture since 1998. I was reading through the job ads on craigslist and noticed how they are posted when looking for cnc programmers. The way I am interpretting the wanted listings is that if you can run one cnc machine, you can run all of them. Back when I ran CNC, it was a FADAL 40x20 with a DOS based machining program. It took me a long time to learn and that was only good for that one machine. Are all the cnc machines running a standard across the board software now? I ask because I was thinking of going back to work part time at a machine shop with hopes of running some cnc machines. I am learning fusion 360 that is taught on titans of cnc academy website. Am I just wasting my time here? Do I need to go to junior college and take cnc machine shop classes?

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different cnc can be very different. even a Mazak mill to a Mazak lathe with live tooling if different enough i can not use Mazak lathe without some help
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many after a few months especially if somebody nearby to ask questions if stuck on something is normal training period. nobody normally does advanced programming after 2 months on a complicated cnc. best you do is easier programming jobs
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i went to night school for cnc too. never been in shop with same cnc types or software so it was of limited value. but school often will help you find a job or have job posting you can see

webphut said:

I been out of the cnc machining picture since 1998. I was reading through the job ads on craigslist and noticed how they are posted when looking for cnc programmers. The way I am interpretting the wanted listings is that if you can run one cnc machine, you can run all of them. Back when I ran CNC, it was a FADAL 40x20 with a DOS based machining program. It took me a long time to learn and that was only good for that one machine. Are all the cnc machines running a standard across the board software now? I ask because I was thinking of going back to work part time at a machine shop with hopes of running some cnc machines. I am learning fusion 360 that is taught on titans of cnc academy website. Am I just wasting my time here? Do I need to go to junior college and take cnc machine shop classes?

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No, there is no "standard" code for programs. Although they are similar in nature with some machines having different G codes like Okuma v Mazak v Fanuc for example.
How much experience do you have? You could take a jr college class, but I don't think you'd gain more than real world experience by getting a job and learning as you go.

more jobs as cnc operators and easier to get especially working 2nd shift. just saying some places cnc programmer makes much less per year than cnc operator working a lot of overtime
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cnc operators making $50,000 to $90,000/yr not unusual. thats just the facts you interpret them

Great operators make great programmers. I have seen too many people take a programming class at a junior college and then think they are shit hot. To be hired as a programmer with no real world programming or operating experience - aint gonna happen.

+1. Maybe +10. It's nigh impossible to make good programs if you don't have significant experience in processing parts. Every one is different. I've been at it for 30 years, and still learn new stuff all the time.

Thank you all!

I am thinking of taking a cnc class at a local junior college, but is that enough to get my foot in the door as helper?

I am semi retired so this would only be to keep me out of the house, up and about, active so to say.

I would be unable to work overtime as I have young children and my schedule is based around them. This was why I was thinking part time, but I am beginning to see from the ads I read, everything is full time.

I am passionate about fabricating/shaping/forming, machining and mig/tig welding, but I am not one of those guys that is Olympic quality at any one of them. I love the fact that there is always that person that does it better than me.

webphut said:

Thank you all!

I am thinking of taking a cnc class at a local junior college, but is that enough to get my foot in the door as helper?

I am semi retired so this would only be to keep me out of the house, up and about, active so to say.

I would be unable to work overtime as I have young children and my schedule is based around them. This was why I was thinking part time, but I am beginning to see from the ads I read, everything is full time.

I am passionate about fabricating/shaping/forming, machining and mig/tig welding, but I am not one of those guys that is Olympic quality at any one of them. I love the fact that there is always that person that does it better than me.

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Sounds like you have a great attitude. Employers love that. So just say what you said here about what you are looking for and someone will hire you based on attitude alone especially since you do have some experience already.

Webphut,

From what I have seen, it all boils down to confidence. Not necessarily your confidence that you can go in on day one and machine ANY part they give you, but the confidence that YOU are the type of person that if cannot machine it on day one, CAN machine it on day two, 3, etc. Do not go into any shop doubting who you are as a person. If the job is above your capabilities then okay, but you know that. If you know the job is within your grasp, even if it takes a few scratches of the head, good, you know that. Bow out of jobs that you KNOW you are not qualified for ( or at the very least, don't misrepresent yourself) and take on the challenges of jobs that you know you can grasp in near future or already have understanding.

I took CNC classes; I ended up teaching the class that same semester. You dont have to "waste" money of them. Just look up what you need to know and go and grow from there. -SML

PS
but the "bow out" DOES NOT mean sell yourself short. If you THINK you have a chance of doing it, say that in the interview, tell them "I believe I can make those parts/run that machine". That's the bottom line.

It sounds like you are an incredibly reasonable person. Look at what jobs are available (a LOT in my area) and see if any sound good. Apply, interview and see where you get with that. If not taking one class is holding you back then sign up for a class but you should be able to tell real quick if that’s what you need to get the job you want. You said you “...have hopes of running some CNC machines...” That sounds like a great way to pick up from where you left off: “running” a machine probably hasn’t changed TOO much in the past 20 years so you should be able to load parts, make offsets, change tools/inserts, etc. all while peeking at the code to see if any of it comes back to you and then go from there. Good luck!

webphut said:

Thank you all!

I am thinking of taking a cnc class at a local junior college, but is that enough to get my foot in the door as helper?

I am semi retired so this would only be to keep me out of the house, up and about, active so to say.

I would be unable to work overtime as I have young children and my schedule is based around them. This was why I was thinking part time, but I am beginning to see from the ads I read, everything is full time.

I am passionate about fabricating/shaping/forming, machining and mig/tig welding, but I am not one of those guys that is Olympic quality at any one of them. I love the fact that there is always that person that does it better than me.

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only part time jobs i have seen dont pay much. had job interview and it ended when i asked for $19/hr
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job was mostly manual machine work like surface grinding and some prototrak mill which is a basic cnc. job was grind rivet heads off take stuff apart, clean redo rivetts. it was rail road switch equipment in a flood. needed repairs from flood water exposure.
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more full time jobs working off shift as they have more trouble filling jobs as most people want to work the day shift. some companies hire older workers and some dont want anybody thats over a certain age. usually they list so many job qualifications they can easily pick a reason not to hire that avoids saying a person is too old
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most cnc are different that most take a month or longer to learn. other thing is often many places program a certain way. if you dont program the company way they will not be happy. often you start as a cnc operator to see for your self their normal way of programming and setting up parts. job planning and creating setups can take longer to learn than actually learning to program a cnc

As the others said,
but, with ..
programming a cnc is not all that hard, as such.

But it is very risky in that trivial mistakes can cause major crashes, errors, losses of 50k$+ very easily in a few seconds/minutes.

And the program from one cnc machine to another may or may not transfer to another machine for endless reasons.

Thus, an older experienced guy is possibly an excellent hire in some shops, and is one of the few jobs I can think of that might be somewhat easily available to You.

--
Counterpoise .. as I was/am a programmer in multiple languages for 3 decades+.

There is a huge enormous difference in productivity/profit between great cnc programs and typical ones.

A widget that took 30 mins might be done in 8, for a 4x savings in cost of == 30$/part or 30x8x26= 6240 $ / month net extra profit on that product alone.
A really good programmer could expect 4x+ typical salary over time -- and be making 10x++ for the company.
--

CNC production vs cnc programming is enormously complex.
But usually ime, it is perfectly possible to greatly increase profits, with minimal investments in capex.

In some companies this is impossible,
in many it is hard to do,
sometimes it is encouraged.

It's all x,y,z,a,b,c.
So, yes there is a standard that has been in place since paper tape. RS-274
Understanding axis orient and direction (relative to the part, not the machine base) and tool offsets and how they work is key.

The user interface on any control "foreign" to you takes a bit to learn.
All M-codes are not part of the standard and free to anything any builders desire so you run into conflicts.
In order to do things with less lines of code people have put in "advanced" G-codes. These you need to know by machine or control version.

I'm not sure a class helps you much if you have the basics of a general nc/cnc machine tool down pat.
If you worked on a cnc and mastered it without understanding what was really going on inside (I see this way too often, bad teachers IMO) a class may light a few pathways connecting to your previous experience.

It's all a standard and rather crude programming deal.
Mazaks can be and are different and a bastard or specialty. (Perhaps a good or better idea but ...special with their own family of lovers)

The fact that you want to jump in, learn as needed, and get how to do it speaks volumes that you should find a way to push in your resume/application.

When making parts a machine can do rapid moves, feed moves, and circular or maybe spline moves.
Everything else is window dressing.
Every fancy program in G-code can be coded with these basic commands and runs just as fast, you just spend more time coding it.

Knowing how to run/adjust or tweak programs on one cnc is different than understanding how cnc machine tools work.
I have no idea what you mentors taught you back a while or what things "took me a long time to learn".

Given the small amount of your attitude shown... You can do it, and apply proud .
Bob

webphut said:

I been out of the cnc machining picture since 1998. I was reading through the job ads on craigslist and noticed how they are posted when looking for cnc programmers. The way I am interpretting the wanted listings is that if you can run one cnc machine, you can run all of them. Back when I ran CNC, it was a FADAL 40x20 with a DOS based machining program. It took me a long time to learn and that was only good for that one machine. Are all the cnc machines running a standard across the board software now? I ask because I was thinking of going back to work part time at a machine shop with hopes of running some cnc machines. I am learning fusion 360 that is taught on titans of cnc academy website. Am I just wasting my time here? Do I need to go to junior college and take cnc machine shop classes?

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If you dont mind me asking, in what general area of Texas do you live?( or specific if you dont mind )

In Soviet Russia you don't program CNC machine, CNC machine programs you!

Somewhat disagree but very politely and respectfully.

There are endless tweaks in gcode that can make vast differences in execution/production time.
One can adjust constant speed vs exact stop and corner rounding and acceleration and accuracy and...
It is a 7 dimensional matrix in truth.

Extremely, extremely complex theoretically, and quite hard practically.
Speed, quality, tool wear, accuracy, tool lifetime, finish, cost, machine parameters vs desired outputs.

One can make anything with basic simple gcodes - yes.
Often a really good gcode program may produce a better part 3-5x faster or better in some way.

The same part on the same machine might cost 20$/hr or 100$/hr in inserts for the same good parts.
The second option is 5x better.
But if one needs more parts overall and time is an issue and they are profitable, it might be better to spend the extra 80$/hr.

There are over 16 millions permutations in basic gcode with iirc 8 typical modals.
Adding machine specific stuff makes the nr Very High.

CarbideBob said:

Every fancy program in G-code can be coded with these basic commands and runs just as fast, you just spend more time coding it.

Knowing how to run/adjust or tweak programs on one cnc is different than understanding how cnc machine tools work.
I have no idea what you mentors taught you back a while or what things "took me a long time to learn".

Given the small amount of your attitude shown... You can do it, and apply proud .
Bob

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plastikdreams said:

In Soviet Russia you don't program CNC machine, CNC machine programs you!

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In Soviet Russia you learn CNC programming by simulation. You simulate on paper what a CNC machine would do if you actually had one to program! Why would any sane person want a machine that eliminates all the busy work that keeps workers happy!

webphut said:

Thank you all!

I am thinking of taking a cnc class at a local junior college, but is that enough to get my foot in the door as helper?

I am semi retired so this would only be to keep me out of the house, up and about, active so to say.

I would be unable to work overtime as I have young children and my schedule is based around them. This was why I was thinking part time, but I am beginning to see from the ads I read, everything is full time.

I am passionate about fabricating/shaping/forming, machining and mig/tig welding, but I am not one of those guys that is Olympic quality at any one of them. I love the fact that there is always that person that does it better than me.

Click to expand...

I think programming can take a lot of dedication to do properly. I'm doubtful that an inexperienced part timer is going to gain enough know how in random spurts of working. How is your employer going to cope with you not being there to fix your program THIS INSTANT, when it is required? Also, when you get going on a complex program, you don't want to just drop what you are doing and lose your steam, if an extra half hour or an hour will finish it. Depending on how good your memory is at remembering where you were at, and how you were building machining strategies to suit a particular machine power, and setup, you could spend a lot of time retracing yesterday's steps, or remembering to fill in what you had decided you would program later on.

Where you will work may help define the pressure and responsibility. If you are working somewhere where no one else knows anything about programming, then maybe you will be the programming god

I am the cnc guy in my own shop. I've never run a lick of code that I didn't create (via computer). I'm not sure how I feel about running other people's code. I have created a very few programs for another shop, and I was paranoid about how they would set up the machine to run the program (I wondered if they knew how).

i got a job as a Mazak CNC mill operator (never ran a mazak before) and after running programs for many months you eventually
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1) create simple a program to rough out a block shape from a bigger piece to replace a scrapped part. then run original program to replace part
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2) modify program for a similar part, maybe just change part length and hole locations.
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3) then you work up to programming and making simple parts. sure 95% i made i was running a program already made. still i made enough programs to learn and fill in for others on vacation.
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it is true you often need to learn the head programmers way to program. that is often you can make part many ways but when you create programs the "normal" way you get less the head programmer wanting to redo your program cause he dont like something. for example i prefer to stop rapid 2" above part and go the rest of the way in feed to give time to react if something wrong. often head programmer would change back to rapid all the way cause it was faster. some things are a personal preference

webphut said:

I been out of the cnc machining picture since 1998. I was reading through the job ads on craigslist and noticed how they are posted when looking for cnc programmers. The way I am interpretting the wanted listings is that if you can run one cnc machine, you can run all of them. Back when I ran CNC, it was a FADAL 40x20 with a DOS based machining program. It took me a long time to learn and that was only good for that one machine. Are all the cnc machines running a standard across the board software now? I ask because I was thinking of going back to work part time at a machine shop with hopes of running some cnc machines. I am learning fusion 360 that is taught on titans of cnc academy website. Am I just wasting my time here? Do I need to go to junior college and take cnc machine shop classes?

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Personally I think you are wasting your time for a couple of simple reasons. You have been out of this field for roughly 20 years. You want to work part time where I see that is a handicap for programming. I think you need to work full time and put long hours in. My opinion is that part time is more like a hobby and that you will not be that serious, I might be wrong but think your attitude will change if things go wrong. Are you going to be around to support your programs or trouble shoot problems when they occur? Going to a school or learning fusion 360 is at best scratching the surface. In the end you family is more important to you and I think the company you would work for would not take you that serious. As a programmer for nearly 20 years I am still scratching the surface in some areas and I can say I would not even be close to the level I am at if I worked part time.