Recently I was listening to someone who was criticizing learning on the internet because "there was no chapter one" the idea being that important fundamentals are missed because producers are making only advanced lessons. Thanks for this great chapter 1 lesson.

@StuartdeHaro

2 жыл бұрын

That's what I'm going for. I'm glad you liked it.

@andrewsmith8388

2 жыл бұрын

Blondihacks did a series on absolute beginner lessons for lathe and mill

Hi Stuart. Thank you very much for all of your very helpful videos. Over the years, I have picked up a lot of tips as well as very valuable information. You have made a few videos on the DRO that you installed on your mill that have been extremely informative. I would like to encourage you to make more videos regarding the setup and use of these import DRO's. Most of us that have them find the documentation limited or difficult to understand the poor manuals. The settings menu contains settings that I, at least, have no clue as to what they are or which buttons to push to change things. I'm sure many would find such videos very helpful. Thanks.

very good very clear

I think many people use the abs/inc feature on digital calipers (well, I do) but just never seem to on my machines. Makes great sense as does tool offsets. I use this all the time when using my CNC mill, but never on my manual mill. Why? Fear? Intimidation? I don’t know but this has motivated me for sure. Thanks Stu!

I recently had a job for several thousand small aluminium upstands for which I would love to have had a small CNC lathe. I made a HSS form tool which had all the features of one end, chamfers, diameter etc, including the part off. I used several tool offsets to simplify this brain numbing exercise. Tool 1: Part off and end diameter exact.. At X:0, Z:0. Then drilled with tailstock drill to just break through so the part off left a clean face. Tool 2: at Z:0 was the stock stop. Tool 3: at X:0 was the OD turning diameter going to Z:0. Revert to tool 1, into X:0, parting off, rinse repeat. My point, on the same tool I listed 3 offsets and each had a simple to remember TARGET number of zero(0) which produced thousands of these little #####ers with less than 1% reject rate, simply.

Very helpful, thanks!

Thank you - that helps reinforce the concept 👍😎👍

Thanks for the tips.

My question is a perfect example of Nicholas's statement "There is no chapter 1" The place i work at has several Southwestern Industries machines, including a SMX 2500 mill with Prototrak control. Staffing problems being what they are, we no longer have any 'expert CNC'ers' working for us, so I'm trying to learn on my own. I know the Prototrak software inside-out, I've used it on a daily basis for the last 7 years, and am extremely comfortable with it, but I'd like to take the next step and be able to run G-Code on it. Ideally I'd like to output Aspire toolpaths and import them into the machine. My problem is I've never used G or M codes before - I'm in the position of not even knowing what it is I should be learning!

@StuartdeHaro

2 жыл бұрын

Hi Steve. I'll see what I can do. I can probably do a basic G-code video with tips from when I was learning, but I'm definitely not your guy for Aspire. We have a 1999 ProtoTrak at work with the AGE2 control, but we never do anything with G-code or anything other than conversational programming.

@Steve_1401

2 жыл бұрын

@@StuartdeHaro That'd be brilliant - our machine uses the same AGE. (EDIT: Actually, I think ours is AGE3) I've looked at the Aspire software over the holidays and it actually has a post for Prototrak. To be honest, I'd just love a very simple G-code program that would run on the prototrak, just milling a line from A to B, with an explanation of what each line does. I assume there's some sort of header? Some way of telling the machine what tool to use, feed rate etc etc. If I had that very simple building block and a basic understanding of how it worked , I'd be in a far better position :)

@StuartdeHaro

2 жыл бұрын

@@Steve_1401 are you running into limitations with the conversational program or just curious how g-code works?

@Steve_1401

2 жыл бұрын

@@StuartdeHaro A bit of both. I'd love to learn how g-code works in general, just for my own enjoyment. I'd love to be able to do a bit of contour milling (hence the Aspire toolpaths), but my main limitation is with engraving text. I have a couple of programs that will take a text input and output either g-code or a dxf file. The dxf files are normally full of splines, which the Prototrak dxf plugin has a fit about. There are work-arounds, extra programs, more steps, and it all gets a bit involved. If I could just take the g-code that was output, alter it as needed and load it into the SMX..... so much easier.

Thanks for the video. I have a DRO like the one you have on your mill. I am trying to setup the "Absolute Reference Point" in case of power failure. I follow the instruction and it says put it in REF mode, select the axis and move that axis until it "beeps". Mine doesn't and I suspect that it is because of the cheap scales and therefore they don't have the reference mark. So, have you tried it and if so did it work? If not do you know what the AB-Ref, LEF_AB references do? Thank you for all you do!

@StuartdeHaro

2 жыл бұрын

I have not done that actually. I'll try to figure out what those do and get back to you.

Good 👍👍👍👍👍

I’m lost ..🤔

@StuartdeHaro

Жыл бұрын

What can I do to clear things up for you?