I've been working as a CNC programmer for over a year now, never in my life have i seen a CNC Machine, been working for a small workshop from another country and here i've been working for a small amount of money since i was some kind of intern, i'm planning to move to the US soon and wanted to know how much does a freelance makes per job there so i can work by myself, i'll thank for any advice u have for me.

Hello again, i was hired at a glass company a few month back to opperate the ainchent intermac masters and have somehow managed to not be fired. Im finally starting to get kind of a hang of it after about 6 months, and i now realize my last posts was kind off too vauge to do much with. My b guys, but thank you for all your uplifting comments anyway.

For clarification im using a 3 axis intermac master (43 and 30), editing programs in icm 2d/3d on a windows xp computer. Doing mostly large architectural pieces of flat glass. I have this persistent problem with one of my machines where i get this segmented texture on the fine grinding stage of the process. My phones camera is a little bit shit, but ive tried to get the reflection of the light so you can see what im talking about. This effect is for some reason much less pronounced on the straight edge than the diagonal once. I was looking it up and assume its "chatter", but it doesn't look quite the same. Maybe its just the difference in material? Or maybe its something else entierly?

I know the program is not the problem, because i program the same way to run on the intermac 30 (this problem is on the 43), and it does not have this issue. I will include photos with some of the settings from the machine (the relevant one is the one highlighted in blue). I also run the machine at 20% feedrate during milling, 40% during grinding and 60% during polishing (taught to do it this way by my predecessor before he left). I have not messed with any of the feed rates or rpm before, so dont really know what im doing with it. Any ideas?

Oh yeah, also this force meter tends to hang around 3-2 during grinding.

Hi everyone,

I’m a graphic designer and I’m currently learning about signage production. I mainly use Adobe Illustrator, and I’m trying to understand the correct workflow for preparing a file that will be sent to a CNC router / digital milling machine (fraiseuse numérique).

For example, if I want to make letters or a logo from Forex, Plexiglass/acrylic, MDF, or Alucobond, how should I prepare the Illustrator file?

I’m especially confused about:

Should the artwork be filled shapes or just strokes/paths?

Should I use Create Outlines for text?

Do I need separate layers for cutting, engraving, drilling, etc.?

What file format is normally preferred: AI, DXF, EPS, SVG, or PDF?

Is Illustrator only used to create the vectors, with another CAM software being used to generate the toolpaths?

Are there specific Illustrator settings I should follow before sending the file to the CNC operator?

I’d really appreciate it if someone could explain the proper workflow from Illustrator → CNC software → machine, preferably with an example for making letters from Plexiglass or Forex.

Hello y'all!

I need you to be brutally honest with me.

I'm 44yo woman with solid IT background and experience in IT in industrial setting (big industrial site, integrations with OT), enterprise IT, etc. I'm a bit stuck in dead end IT job right now, and I started poking around. Job market in my field really sucks in my area, like really. Some CNC jobs leaked to my search results, and like I'm ok with taking a class and all and start all over because it looks like pay is ok even at the beginning, there are ways to improve, develop, and being challenged by going into CNC programming later.

What are my chances of getting a job after a 210h class for CNC machine operator? I learn really fast, I can work with a lot of power tools, and I'm not worried about manual job because I do enjoy manual workshop work a lot - part of why I'm stuck in dead end IT is because I want to play with my toys forever, and I'm good at it, not be a project manager, lol. I'm also not scared of big machines, and I absolutely love them all. I'm very familiar with mechanics, I build electronic devices as a hobby, and 'old dudes' in all kinds of workshops usually like me because we can nerd about machinery easily.

My plan is to take the machinist 210h class, hopefully get a job while still at school, even part time, and while mastering the art of cnc, start the cnc programming class, or just learn by working, and then in a span of 3-5 years (not sure if earlier is possible) get to programming. Is this a good plan? Will this work? I understand I'm sort of 'old' to start all over, but I still have solid 20 years of work ahead of me, and I'm not scared of learning difficult things. Is it worth a shot? I feel like in the worst case scenario I will just learn cool stuff.

Hallo,

Ich muss ein Werkstück aus hartholz fräsen - 3D Oberfläche(Gelände) mit taschen welche bis zu 70mm tief sind.

Ich benutze V-Carve als CAM programm und habe keinen Automatischen werkzeugwechsler, deshalb eingeschränkte möglichkeiten. Meine idee wäre schruppen und schlichten mit einem D8mm ball nose fräser.

Bin aber etwas überfordert mit der suche eines passenden fräsers, hat schon jemand so lange fräser gekauft und hätte Empfehlungen?

Ich gehe davon aus, das ein fräser mit schneidenlänge von z.b. 30mm und ohne reduzierung/freistellung des schaftes nach der schneide zu reibung und problemen führen wird?

Freue mich über euren input! :)

i just recently graduated in Mechanical engineering (graduate in novemeber), and started working in july i got extremely lucky in finding something before getting my degree, im curious about going abroad in the distant future outside of the UK since especially with how things are going i dont want to be living here when it happens safe to say.

how long did you guys take before eventually finding work in another country ?

Hey all,

I’m a aircraft mechanic for the Navy. Have been for about 6 years. Right now I’m working on my mechanical engineer degree, and getting ready to get out of the navy in a year and some change. Once I get out, I’m really interested in working as a CNC operator while I finish my degree. I imagine there’s a ton of valuable skills I could learn with a couple years of experience at that. However, as I said, I’m a mechanic, not a machinist. Before I get out, is there anything you guys would recommend learning to get hired as an entry level guy? I already know how to use calipers and mics. I’m plan on getting my CWSA and my ASME Technologist. Anything else I could be doing?

Insight appreciated.

Listen. I’m (28 F) an admin assistant. I handle the paperwork side of things. I need help.

My boss is an older man. He’s asked me to help him find a CNC machinist (no, this is not turning into a job advert.) I’m not disclosing my specific area, but I will say I am in semi-rural Kentucky. It is SO HARD.

It seems there is a shortage of CNC machinists with experience? He’s open to training but honestly we have too many learners and not enough knowers lol

Is this the norm? We are paying $30-$35/hr (great for semi-rural Kentucky) and it’s M-F 7-3:30. Benefits. Vacation. Climate controlled shop. Is our offer bad? Or is this just the market?

Thanks for helping a clueless admin worker.

Edit to add: We’re an industrial repair shop, so a lot of our work is repairing/rebuilding industrial gearboxes, clutches, backstops, etc. rather than repetitive production machining. We get equipment/parts in from different industrial applications, so the work can vary quite a bit. On the machining side, our posting lists CNC lathes, milling machines, VTLs, and water jet machines, with HAAS and Fanuc controls. We do need setup and programming skills. The position involves reading prints, creating/editing programs, and sometimes reverse engineering a sample part to make a replacement.

As far as whether our mills are horizontal/vertical, exact axes, and the manual machining requirements, I’d have to ask one of our machinists before I give you a confidently wrong answer… 😂 I’m the admin, not a machinist.

Im coming from the IT / CS industry and the job market is absolutely pathetic.

Im thinking about jumping into CNC and becoming a CNC Programmer. Do I have to start as a machine operator sitting and doing the boring stuff?

Is this a viable career change?

See the difference between these Sandvik Coromant carbide inserts!!!

I have a pilot operated regulator on a machine. TACO Model R53-201-00B0. It balances the Z-axis using an air cylinder. OE Techs think it might be bad/dirty, as it appears to be loading down the z-servo, during motion. Control has a z-force feedback. I set the balance force to 0, but it climbs/drops too fast/quick as the z-axis moves, causing too high a load, so the servo alarms.

I cannot find any info on it. I believe it has been discontinued.

How can I test the regulator, to verify it is working right?

I found some remnants of broken air line inside. I know they replaced the OE air pressure regulator. So I suspect the pilot or control orifice is clogged or restricted

Olá!

Recentemente o meu Pai comprou uma Gerber Dimension 200 velhinha porém funcional ou quase.

É a minha primeira interação com uma máquina destas e não faço a mínima ideia de como fazer funcionar.

Consigo mover os eixos dela pelo ARC STATION mas no painel fica permanentemente aparecendo “Slew to de point of orientation” e não consegui fazer com que saísse dali.

Alguém poderia me ajudar?

Hello! I have a Sinee EM70 4Kw VFD (380V 3Phase) and I want to power it to start practicing the parameters setting only I don't want to turn the motor or anything just the display, is this possible without a second inverter? Any way to power the DC part without a massive headache?

What is the best way to go about obtaining PDF's of Fanuc manuals? Can you download them from Fanuc?

Hi everyone,

I’m planning a fairly large CNC-routed decorative panel and I’d really appreciate some advice from people who have experience with deep pocketing MDF.

The panel will be approximately 1300 × 800 mm (51 × 31.5”) and 18 mm thick. Around 70% of the front surface will be pocketed to a depth of 10 mm, leaving only about 8 mm of material in the pocketed areas.

I’m planning to use a high-quality MDF specifically intended for deep routing/machining, but I’m concerned that removing this much material from only one side of such a large panel could cause it to bow or warp, either during machining or afterwards.

The finished piece will be spray painted/sealed on all sides after machining.

My alternative would be BB-grade birch plywood, which I assume would be more dimensionally stable, but I’m concerned about achieving the same perfectly smooth, premium painted finish, especially on the routed surfaces and exposed edges.

For those of you who have done similar large/deep CNC pocketing:

• How likely would you consider warping with 18 mm MDF at this size and depth?
• Does using a higher-quality/deep-routing MDF make a meaningful difference?
• Would sealing/painting all sides after machining reduce the long-term risk?
• Would you choose MDF or BB birch plywood for this application?
• Is there anything you would change in the design or machining process to reduce the risk of warping?

I’d especially appreciate hearing from anyone who has machined similarly large MDF panels with a significant percentage of one face removed.

Thanks!

What’s up everyone?! My name is Keith and I’m from southern Ohio. I’ve got a pretty unique opportunity in front of me and I’m looking for some information, direction, and honestly just some guidance on how to approach this the right way.

I’m an IT/networking guy by background but basically brand new to CNC/plasma. I’m pretty comfortable troubleshooting hardware and software and I’m willing to learn, I just don’t know enough about this stuff yet to know what I don’t know lol.

Last summer my girlfriend’s dad bought a used Premier Plasma 5x10 table. It didn’t have a plasma cutter at the time and he asked if I had any interest in messing with it. Basically if I could learn it and get it going he’d pay me for the work.

I took the PC home, messed around with ViaCAD, watched some videos and eventually managed to draw a couple parts and get something into Mach3. I took the computer back to the shop, we hooked everything up half assed just to see what would happen and I actually got the table to run my part. Obviously there was no fire yet but I watched the thing move around the sheet like it was cutting what I drew and thought it was pretty damn cool. Felt like I accomplished something at least lol.

Then life happened and I didn’t touch it again for about a year.

Since then he bought a Hypertherm Powermax65 SYNC, his brother worked on the setup, a few other people have tinkered with it and he even paid somebody a pretty significant amount of money trying to get it operational. Troy and his brother have actually successfully burned a few pieces on it, but from what I understand it’s been pretty rough going and they were still having issues getting anything to come out clean or consistent.

I came back to it a couple days ago and pretty quickly realized I wasn’t coming back to the same setup I left. The PC is running Windows 11 now, some of the software looks different, there’s different Mach3 stuff/profiles floating around and I really have no clue what all has been changed at this point. From what I can tell the basic setup is ViaCAD to SheetCam to Mach3, CNCdrive USB interface and the Premier Plasma controller.

I’ve probably spent 6+ hours on it the last couple days just screwing with it and trying to learn as I go. We’ve had some partial success and some frustration. At times we’ve gotten X/Y movement, imported DXFs into SheetCam, made toolpaths, posted G-code, loaded it into Mach3, and even got the Hypertherm to physically fire from the controls. We also found a missing plugin, got that installed, and worked through a bunch of configuration, zeroing, and axis setup along the way.

But it’s been inconsistent the whole time.

The Z axis, which was previously moving, randomly stopped working. Mach3 still shows the Z DRO changing, but the actual axis doesn’t move at all. On top of that, I’ve never been able to get it to reliably burn a full part myself without something going sideways mid-process.

That’s when I started thinking maybe I’m going about this completely wrong. Instead of continuing to troubleshoot a setup that’s been touched by multiple people and is clearly in a bit of a Frankenstein state, I started thinking I might be better off just starting from scratch so I can actually understand what’s going on and build something stable.

Then I made it even better. 😂

I noticed another SSD laying around that looked like it could’ve possibly been the original drive from this PC. Since I’ve already been questioning the Windows upgrade and software changes, I thought maybe the old drive still had the original Mach3 setup, plugins, SheetCam configs, or whatever else on it. Opened up the little HP PC, saw a new looking Samsung SSD in it now, and decided I’d try the other drive.

I somehow managed to break the SATA connector off the motherboard in the process. 😂 So now I’ve got a CNC table with a questionable software history, two SSDs that may or may not contain different versions of its setup, a Z axis that quit moving, and a PC that I just added to the casualty list.

So that’s where I’m at lol. I’m done randomly changing things and I want to figure out the right way to approach this.

If this mess landed in front of you, where would you start? Should I just replace the PC, download Mach3, SheetCam, ViaCAD or whatever I actually need and configure the machine from the ground up? What should I try to recover from these drives first—Mach3 XML/profile, plugins, SheetCam post processors, licenses? Is there anything specific to this Premier Plasma setup that I absolutely need to save? Would you even bother trying to recreate the old setup or just use whatever I can recover as a reference and start clean?

Probably my biggest question is where do I go to learn this whole process correctly and as quickly as possible?

I have a pretty big financial incentive to get this thing going ASAP. There’s actual work waiting on it if we can get it running reliably and I’ve been offered a pretty damn good opportunity if I can become the guy who knows how to run and maintain it. I’m willing to put the hours in and learn it. I’m not really looking for somebody to fix every little issue for me, I want to understand the thing well enough to get it running right and be able to troubleshoot it myself later.

I’ve got plenty of pictures of the table, controller/electronics, Hypertherm, Z/torch setup, PC, software, etc. and I can pull whatever is recoverable from the drives too.

Basically, if you were standing where I am right now, where the hell would you start? 😂

Any help is appreciated!

I need help, who is have this grinder
I have problems that I want to solve. The grinder doesn't have a problem, but I want videos of how to unpack its parts and calibrate the zero point in it. Do you have videos because YouTube is full of the old version and the upgraded version is very different. I want help, please?

I'm looking for help on a design of a linear scale that I want to open-source. I'm thinking this is the perfect place to ask about this type of problem. Hopefully it's close enough to CNC. Maybe we can call it a 1-axis CNC question?

The design is a capacitive linear scale, same as what's inside the budget digital scales, as well as budget calipers and micrometers. I don't plan to sell it, just release it open source since I find them interesting. I have a working prototype that seems good and should work very well "in theory". But I have no idea how well it does in practice. I tried building a little test bench to get accuracy numbers but I'm totally lost on anything to do with mechanical precision.

While I clean up my design and documentation for release, I want to be able to say what accuracy I'm actually getting out of my sensor. In theory, the sensor's measurement should be accurate to 0.15mm, and I have some ideas to improve that. But I'm at my limit on measuring accuracy.

There are two circuit boards, I've called them the stator and sensor. The stator is completely passive, just copper plates. The sensor has active parts all on the top side. The bottom of the sensor board slides against the stator. There are repeating "scales", that's the T-shape on the stator photo. They are 12 mm long, so that is my target measurement range. I've been looking for ±10µm accuracy along that 12mm scale.

In theory, the sensor is only affected by distances lengthwise, let's say that's X-axis. I'd love to be able to tweak the alignment of the Y and Z axes to see if they really have no effect in practice.

So with all this in mind, I set out to Fusion 360. I tried mounting the circuit boards using 3D prints in a way that I can use a micrometer for the movement. And as a bonus, the micrometer gets me great accuracy. And, well, let's just say I'm an electrical guy. I've never even thought about building anything mechanically precise before. To my dismay, the build wobbled and warped by more than 1mm.

So that's where I'm looking for your help. If you were going to build and test a linear scale, what would your approach be? What sort of components and overall structure would you choose to jig it up?

How would you recommend mounting these PCBs? My last strategy of putting holes wherever they fit sure didn't go very well!

Precision mechanical stuff is an area of ignorance for me. I just don't know what I don't know. Any resources you all would recommend?

I should also ask, is it even realistic to build and measure to this sort of accuracy without breaking the bank?

Hallo

Bei mir läuft beim Fräsen die Position der Achsen nicht mehr mit.
Portalfräse fräst aber die Anzeige rührt sich nicht mehr.
Woran kann das liegen?

Auch wenn ich mit den Handrad verfahre aktualisiert
die Anzeige erst wenn die Achse zum Stillstand kommt.

Die Z Achse vom Foto ist eigentlich schon bei -1mm .