Thread: What hope do we have?

Originally Posted by Stustoys

Kev,
Why would there be any crashes? If I recall correctly, "you could train the village idiot to program a CNC machine".

Stuart

Believe me the village idiot makes mistakes too.
The reason the Kondia at work has a 2" thick alloy sub table on it ,,,,,, to hide the canyons in the main table, and to protect it from any more village people mistakes.

I went to a Mazak presentation one time, the place where I was working at the time was considering buying a CNC lathe for the maintenance machine shop .Most of the jobs would be one off , with the occasional job lot here and there.
The guy who did the presento reckoned he could get any "village idiot off the street " and could teach them to program the lathe and have them producing parts with in 2 hours.
Mind you he didn't actually demonstrate that he could do it , and I thought he was pretty game making a statement like that .
His words always come to mind in CNC /manual machine discussions

Kev.

There are a few village idiot's around here that I would guarantee not to be able to do it in 2 years.lol
I did read or see a video about those engine blocks being full size and being better than cast for some reason I can't recall.
CNC is here to stay and the way of the future, I agree it can be done on a manual mill but time is a lot of money these days.

Dave

But where do you draw the line for the backyard weekend evening DIY bloke.
There must be a lot of spare cash out there.
From some of the things I have read on this Forum some of the fellows converting machines to CNC arent, too clued up on a manual machine.

Yeh! it's no fun and no skill and it puts people out of work the village idiot can operate it, and after saying all that I would still love to have one in shed

Originally Posted by pipeclay

But where do you draw the line for the backyard weekend evening DIY bloke.
There must be a lot of spare cash out there.
From some of the things I have read on this Forum some of the fellows converting machines to CNC arent, too clued up on a manual machine.

I agree and think you should start out with manual machining.
The programs are getting better to over come this step like Bob's off CNC cook book. He has designed a program that calculates speeds and feeds for a given horse power and end mill size in any material to take away the guess work.
I know my conversion is going to end up costing around $2500- $3500 doing it myself, but I will gather it piece by piece so I don't fell it so much. Some of the smaller mills can be done for a lot less.
When you look at what things cost these days it's not really much. My son just bought a registered KTM dirt bike second hand and it cost him $8700 and its just for weekend fun.

Dave

Originally Posted by Woodlee

Believe me the village idiot makes mistakes too.
The reason the Kondia at work has a 2" thick alloy sub table on it ,,,,,, to hide the canyons in the main table, and to protect it from any more village people mistakes.

Sorry I thought you meant "you could teach the village idiot to write "good" code". If your statment is "you could teach the village idiot to right "crap" code", then I agree.

If it runs into the table the code is crap and you haven't done a very good job teaching your idiot.

Stuart

G'day China,

Yeh, I'd love one too, just to muck around with.

Before inkjet printers came into being, I used to plot all my Autocad drawings out on a Roland DXY 1300 ink pen plotter.

Watching the arm move around was the best part, until close to the end, you spotted a spelling mistake. Bugger, another piece of paper, and start over. Fascinating.

I've been watching a bloke in the States progress with his home made lathe.
Can't have enough toys.

It's alive, ALIVE I tell ya! - The Home Shop Machinist & Machinist's Workshop Magazine's BBS

Ken

Interesting thread as I have been pondering CNC, being the village idiot I now have a chance, Thanks Kev

My interest in CNC I guess started way back in the 60's when thanks to my aunt who was a punch card operator explained her work programming machines to do what the then village idiots had designed.

More recently it has raised interest back in the 90's where I saw name plate panels being made with an CNC engraver. LOL The problems an A3 size machine caused all because it sat on top of steel filling cabinets not a sturdy bench. (Village idiot running it syndrome).

Watching at H&F open day a $160k machine making bottle openers in 20s took longer to put a new blank in.

Closer to home for me now is the emergence CNC into Ornamental Turning.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2BBjQopArE&feature=related]YouTube - Ornamental Turning -- box decorated, EMC2 CNC[/ame]


Kev interesting you working on P76 had two mates worked here at Leyland Sydney one went on to the Leyland national sales side.

Originally Posted by Woodlee

Believe me the village idiot makes mistakes too.
The reason the Kondia at work has a 2" thick alloy sub table on it ,,,,,, to hide the canyons in the main table, and to protect it from any more village people mistakes..

I hope you are not basing your entire argument on a prehistoric CNC converted turret milling machine...

Back in 1975 I used to navigate my DC-3 around the Arctic using a sextant, an almanac and a good watch. I was the very last of a breed: I think the third last guy to even have an astral navigation question on my airline transport pilot exam. Knowing where we were within 30 miles was pretty good

We used to take local hour angle alignments with the sun to back up our compasses, and I have done a few Atlantic crossings using time. speed, distance as my sole means of navigation. The colour of the sky, the appearance of the swells, a glance at a smokestack was how we got around. Now there are no smokestacks where I want to fly, a computer speaks computer talk with satellites and navigates so accurately that being within (only) 30 metres is cause for grumbling.

My point is that computers in flight management systems, CNC, and a thousand other applications are exactly what was promised back when: A system that removed the need for advanced skills from the job, while at the same time delivering accuracy, reliability and predictability. Those last things are the real genius: as good as the best humans are, reliable and predictable they'll never be.

GQ (call me unreliable. call me inedible too)

Which is a long-winded vote for CNC as a tool for producing reliable, accurate parts with little variation and no crashes. If you don't mind taking your time though, there's lot's of fun to be had on a manual mill or a DC-3

Originally Posted by .RC.

I hope you are not basing your entire argument on a prehistoric CNC converted turret milling machine...

Definitely not a converted manual machine .Kondia CNC from the get go .
I've forgotten the model number and the program interface it uses , but I can fine out next week when I get back to work.

Kev.

Originally Posted by BobL

Apparently not. Turbines are the same. These days, if a zillion units are needed it's cheaper to machine from a stock block than cast and finish. The reason is labor (very expensive and unreliable) over the material costs involved with casting. CNC has minimal labour costs and although casting could be automated but then it would be a lot more complicated. Macintosh Powerbook laptop cases - tens of thousands of them are CNC'd out of solid ally slabs.

Alloy casting has been automated for along time ,part of my work in the toolroom was making and repairing casting dies for the machines that cast parts for the auto industry .

I'm not convinced on the solid block idea , Ferrari still cast thier engine blocks and thier factory is the ants pants in production facilities ,lots of robots and CNC machines.I've yet to see a Jap production vehicle running around with a totally machined engine block , if any one was going to do it to save money they would be the ones to do it.
Not to say it can't be done the video in the op is proof that it's possible.
We use the Kondia CNC (when its functioning ) to manufacture replacement aircraft parts ,and do use solid blocks of alloy , but they are fairly small and it is quicker and cheaper to manufacture in that manner.


Gas fired turbines are some thing that I've worked on in the last few years , they are built using exotic alloys and materials ,it would be lunacy to carve a gas producer casing from a solid block of titanium/stainless alloy ,plus the fact that the tools would not last very long .
The compressor blades are investment cast from some wild and exotic alloy, so hard that they use a lazer to "drill" the cooling holes laterally down the leading edge of the blades .
The casting is so accurate that very little machining is done on the blades at all.

Maybe some examples would help to convince me.

Kev.

Originally Posted by Woodlee

Definitely not a converted manual machine .Kondia CNC from the get go .
I've forgotten the model number and the program interface it uses , but I can fine out next week when I get back to work.

Kev.

But still a converted turret mill... Does it have any conversational capabilities like ost modern machines...

I like the old mechanical machines as well, but even in jobbing shops CNC is the way to go, there is very little you can do faster on a manual machine then you can on a modern CNC...

Hi all
cnc billet engine blocks mainly for racing be wet or dry ,one offs.
Tony