mancavedweller
Aluminum
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2012
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
Wondering where you experienced shop owners would place me (i.e. as an employee) at this point in time. I'm relatively new to this game and have had a whopping 4 full months of work in an engineering job shop. OK, stop laughing.
Prior to this I was running my own small excavation business, and prior to that I was an electrician on both offshore and onshore oil/gas well drilling rigs.
So how the hell did I get a position in a job shop. Well the owner knew me from social circles and we'd often discuss (more like argue LOL) mainly about CNC plasma, and other engineering stuff. I've built my own cnc plasma table, bought a big lathe and mill, and self taught myself everything I know from forums, web searching, Youtube, and mainly old school books. The shop owner offered me a job because he thought I had the right attitude to do OK in his shop. He knew I did all my own repairs/maintenance - line boring, stripping down hydraulic motors/pumps, rebuilding hydraulic rams, complete slew ring changeout (excavator), built a plant trailer, etc.
Anyway, apart from sweeping the floor and deburring parts when needed, I do some basic work on the manual lathes, and the milling machines. I've got to the stage of running two cnc milling machines and one cnc lathe. So what do I mean by "running" them ?
CNC LATHE:
Well I'm not doing the programming except for some basic programming at the cnc lathe itself. Example, writing a stock removal program for turning soft jaws, or doing internal/external turning, and facing. I did play with making a threaded cone and it simulated good.
I'll install suitable jaws, turn soft jaws to suit the job, calibrate the jaw positions.
Program the auto bar feeder, and set up the bushings in the lathe spindle to suit the bar diameter.
Typically the boss will give me a drawing which has the file name. I load the program, find all the tools needed, remove and install tools in the turret, update the tool table, and measure all the newly installed tools with the probe.
Where the chuck jaws extend outward from the main chuck diameter, I'll manually bring various tools (i.e. the turret) up to the chuck and hand turn the chuck to test for possible tool crashing during machining.
Then I'll touch off the part and update program zero (or the offset from program zero whichever it may be in the program).
Once all that's done I run the first part "very carefully", with my two hands on the stop button and the feedrate/rapid dial.
Once the parts are in production, I'm measuring them, monitoring for surface finish, correct dimensions, etc, and adjusting tool wear offset as necessary. Using verniers, micrometer, telescopic bore gauges, dial bore gauges.
As necessary I'll pause the program and change out worn/stuffed inserts. If it's a finishing insert I'll completely stop the program, re-measure the insert, back off the tool wear offset, re-start the program from where it left off, then check the next part dimensions to see what tool wear offset may need re-adjusting. Typically, because I've backed off the tool wear offset the part will be slightly oversized and then I can adjust tool wear and start the program from that point again.
CNC MILLS
Fairly similar to the lathe, except I'm loading/unload tools in the magazines, and setting program zero is done with the probes after reading the "blank forms" (Heidenhain) in the program for the X, Y and Z program positions.
Also, I don't do any programming on the mills, the boss does all that.
I don't really get to learn much "real stuff" on the manual machines because the old guy we have does most of that and if I have a moment to spare the boss has me doing some other task between the cnc part runs, even if it's just tidying up. Sometimes, I'm running 2 of the CNCs and doing basic stuff on the manual lathe or mill in between. Ha ha, I bought a kitchen timer so I could sit it next to me while I'm doing the other stuff and I'll know exactly when a part is about to finish in the CNC. I wish I could spend some time learning "real" manual techniques from the old guy.
And a bit off topic but I also did fix one of the cnc mills when it stopped working. The main cycle start button had stuffed up so removed the circuit board and swapped the stuffed PCB button out for one of the unused ones (I play with electronics/microcontrollers too and make my own PCBs).
Of course I'm still always irritating my boss with newbie questions (it's all go go in this shop) about things I want to understand, and I realise I'm only just scratching the surface with this game, but where would you shop owners place me as an employee (I'm guessing apprentice level).
Due to my lack of experience in this game, am I pretty much still considered a button pushing monkey, and only much good for floor sweeping and deburring, outside of basic cnc running.
Prior to this I was running my own small excavation business, and prior to that I was an electrician on both offshore and onshore oil/gas well drilling rigs.
So how the hell did I get a position in a job shop. Well the owner knew me from social circles and we'd often discuss (more like argue LOL) mainly about CNC plasma, and other engineering stuff. I've built my own cnc plasma table, bought a big lathe and mill, and self taught myself everything I know from forums, web searching, Youtube, and mainly old school books. The shop owner offered me a job because he thought I had the right attitude to do OK in his shop. He knew I did all my own repairs/maintenance - line boring, stripping down hydraulic motors/pumps, rebuilding hydraulic rams, complete slew ring changeout (excavator), built a plant trailer, etc.
Anyway, apart from sweeping the floor and deburring parts when needed, I do some basic work on the manual lathes, and the milling machines. I've got to the stage of running two cnc milling machines and one cnc lathe. So what do I mean by "running" them ?
CNC LATHE:
Well I'm not doing the programming except for some basic programming at the cnc lathe itself. Example, writing a stock removal program for turning soft jaws, or doing internal/external turning, and facing. I did play with making a threaded cone and it simulated good.
I'll install suitable jaws, turn soft jaws to suit the job, calibrate the jaw positions.
Program the auto bar feeder, and set up the bushings in the lathe spindle to suit the bar diameter.
Typically the boss will give me a drawing which has the file name. I load the program, find all the tools needed, remove and install tools in the turret, update the tool table, and measure all the newly installed tools with the probe.
Where the chuck jaws extend outward from the main chuck diameter, I'll manually bring various tools (i.e. the turret) up to the chuck and hand turn the chuck to test for possible tool crashing during machining.
Then I'll touch off the part and update program zero (or the offset from program zero whichever it may be in the program).
Once all that's done I run the first part "very carefully", with my two hands on the stop button and the feedrate/rapid dial.
Once the parts are in production, I'm measuring them, monitoring for surface finish, correct dimensions, etc, and adjusting tool wear offset as necessary. Using verniers, micrometer, telescopic bore gauges, dial bore gauges.
As necessary I'll pause the program and change out worn/stuffed inserts. If it's a finishing insert I'll completely stop the program, re-measure the insert, back off the tool wear offset, re-start the program from where it left off, then check the next part dimensions to see what tool wear offset may need re-adjusting. Typically, because I've backed off the tool wear offset the part will be slightly oversized and then I can adjust tool wear and start the program from that point again.
CNC MILLS
Fairly similar to the lathe, except I'm loading/unload tools in the magazines, and setting program zero is done with the probes after reading the "blank forms" (Heidenhain) in the program for the X, Y and Z program positions.
Also, I don't do any programming on the mills, the boss does all that.
I don't really get to learn much "real stuff" on the manual machines because the old guy we have does most of that and if I have a moment to spare the boss has me doing some other task between the cnc part runs, even if it's just tidying up. Sometimes, I'm running 2 of the CNCs and doing basic stuff on the manual lathe or mill in between. Ha ha, I bought a kitchen timer so I could sit it next to me while I'm doing the other stuff and I'll know exactly when a part is about to finish in the CNC. I wish I could spend some time learning "real" manual techniques from the old guy.
And a bit off topic but I also did fix one of the cnc mills when it stopped working. The main cycle start button had stuffed up so removed the circuit board and swapped the stuffed PCB button out for one of the unused ones (I play with electronics/microcontrollers too and make my own PCBs).
Of course I'm still always irritating my boss with newbie questions (it's all go go in this shop) about things I want to understand, and I realise I'm only just scratching the surface with this game, but where would you shop owners place me as an employee (I'm guessing apprentice level).
Due to my lack of experience in this game, am I pretty much still considered a button pushing monkey, and only much good for floor sweeping and deburring, outside of basic cnc running.