too many projects

great work stephen, when can we see the 50 running?

I was going to say "fat chance", but it looks like I ran the USAF out of money again 😊 so I doubt I'll have a job past 30 Dec. So less money & more time may have one done sooner than later.

too bad the "free" machine shop will not be at your disposal, but i am sure something better will come along

What software do you use to program the CNC with? A passion of mine is reverse engineering parts. The shop just bought a CMM (coordinate measuring machining) for inspection. Guess who's going to figure out how to use it to his advantage. Thanks for the pictures


Matt

This is the kind of stuff I like to see on this board!
SpragueM, I have Bobcad that I use for my mill. I have a Bridgeport with a SWI MX3 control on it. BobCad works fine for all the drilling and profiling jobs I do. I'm not up to speed on the 3D stuff though. That's for my son to figure out. He is getting on to Mastercam from his industrial arts school.

Sideseat,

What those photo's represent is why most of us are here. To share knowledge and resources. Unfortunately there are a few that are largely just vocal, and really nothing constructive.
So hopefully things will turn around, a lot of great talent hidden in the woodwork here. Master Cam is the thing to have, real workhorse of the industry. I have ran it for nearly 20 years, since it first came out. The shop I work at now uses Gibbscam, and is regretting it. I do a lot of high dollar parts, all the way up to 5 Axis machining. At least that part of the economy has stayed busy.

Matt

I need to try to get on to Mastercam but it's hard to focus on something new while running the every day jobs in our window frame business. I'm about 29yrs behind😞 I have a small machine and sheet metal shop for fixing things making tooling ect. and of course making my Cat sheet metal parts I sell.
My son is exposed to the new stuff at the Votech. In the past 4yrs they they've purchased a Hass TM1,TM2 ,Minimill , and a lathe but can't remember the model.

That's some nice work there Stephen.
Sorry to hear about where you guys stand with work, we went through that about two years ago when we had some major cutbacks and laid off career employees for the first time since the 70's, So far it looks this year that we have enough work to keep us employed, except for one key area that doesn't look like it got the funding in the latest budget released in October.

I have spent a little time on mastercam, It does give the person down on the shop floor a lot of power for what it is. Our manufacturing end is now going through some updating and consolidation and that is the program we are leaning toward. Currently another facility is using that software.

Typically where I work we use PRO E for complex projects because it allows you to build some rather large assemblies building upon multiple parts, and if the individual part is drawn correctly it will show any interference if you change one demission in one part.
PTC the company that developed PRO E gave Caterpillar corp. an award a few years back for their design of one of the high drive cats.

Cr
Pro E is a nice setup. Really takes a lot of the guess work out of design, especially as you said in assemblies. Makes the final product more likely to wok out of the box. Only down side to Pro E is the learning curve.

When you "marry" Pro E to a product like MasterCam you lose that associativity. The guy's on the shop floor have to build it to design. Making design changes on the run just do not work out well. Document control is important.

Matt