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manual guide I

cuttergrinder

Hot Rolled
Joined
Mar 16, 2007
Location
Salem,Ohio
we have a large leadwell lathe at work. It has a fanuc control. I have been programming it with cam but it has manual guide I. I was wondering what you guys think of the manual guide I and if it would be worth learning to use it..
 
Of course you should learn it. It will be faster to program parts than with CAM no matter what the CAM only people will tell you.
 
I find it very cumbersome. I now only use it for the thread repair function and even then only because I have to.

It is unlikely to be faster than a skilled CAM programmer no matter what the longhand/manual guide people will tell you.
 
Of course you should learn it. It will be faster to program parts than with CAM no matter what the CAM only people will tell you.

And I will be one of the CAM people to say that that is bullshit unless you are incompetent with your cam, or your cam just sucks.

MGi is pretty crap. If your cam is working for you don't waste your time.
 
I myself find the cam to be easier but i need to get some of the other guys up to speed on programming the lathe. i just didnt want to waste time having them learn the MGI if its crap. I myself find the G code cycles such as G71 almost easier to program a simple shape by hand rather than going through the Mgi. When you get into a bunch of corner radii, the cam really helps.
 
I was not impressed with MGI. Going from Haas Intuitive programming to Fanuc MGI was a giant leap backwards. Thank goodness for CAM.
 
I used to teach the courses on Manual Guide i when I worked for Doosan. It's a decent programming system for simple to moderate complexity parts. It has the ability to customize it's cycles and can do quite a bit. Short learning curve too.
 
I myself find the cam to be easier but i need to get some of the other guys up to speed on programming the lathe. i just didnt want to waste time having them learn the MGI if its crap. I myself find the G code cycles such as G71 almost easier to program a simple shape by hand rather than going through the Mgi. When you get into a bunch of corner radii, the cam really helps.

Sounds like you know exactly what its useful and not so useful for. It is a little more intuitive than G-Code for someone starting from scratch.

I find it easier and quicker to copy and edit programs in MGI. I use some of the cycles like tapping, engraving and drilling but for most of the turning I copy an old similar program and make edits.

No matter what the Cam people or the longhand/manual people tell you, you will have to find what works best for you.
 
I found that using G71/G72 cycles was just way faster than going through Manual Guide i. It was a little odd to figure out the Japanglish in the FANUC manual on the canned cycles, but not difficult.
 
FWIW I use both on our lathe - I have 10-12 simple parts that always remain in Guide (OD/ID profile, OD/ID threading, etc.) Go in and quickly modify them as needed, and am usually making chips within 2-3 minutes. Anything more than 3-4 steps in Guide I do in CAM as modifying large Guide programs gets cumbersome very quickly.

Also, anything I need for future reference I do in CAM. I don't want to depend on Guide programs being around and how they are saved off the machine is a PITA.
 
Of course you should learn it. It will be faster to program parts than with CAM no matter what the CAM only people will tell you.

Uhhhh... no.

If you have your CAM set up correctly, it would take far less time than doing it at the machine.
That being said, doing it at the machine isn't a bad way to do it,it's just that in most situations it's probably slower.
 
Uhhhh... no.

If you have your CAM set up correctly, it would take far less time than doing it at the machine.
That being said, doing it at the machine isn't a bad way to do it,it's just that in most situations it's probably slower.

Absolutely not.
 
I tried it once and hated it. As easy as it is to program canned turning, facing, grooving and threading cycles I though it was pretty clunky and cumbersome.


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