Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Newbie needs advice

In a message dated 24-Dec-00 06:56:33 Central Standard Time,
kcatbat@... writes:

>

OK, Karen: At the outset, know and understand that I am an uneducated old
troll, living in a van, down by the river, and I have absolutely NO "formal"
training in machine-shop practices at all. I.e., I am a self-taught
ignoramus. Knowing that myself, then, is the reason I sought out and
purchased two books, thinking I might glean useful information from them.
Perhaps, were I already a trained machinist, at least with, say, high-school
machine-shop in my resume, I might have. But they serve primarily to
intimidate, and convince me this is not my Century!

They are:

#1: This one may be "old stuff". But it was copyrighted in '89, and I KNOW
"modern" CNC was in use at least a decade before that, so: "NC Machine
Programming and Software Design" by Chao-Hwa Chang and Michel A. Melkanoff.
Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-610809-1

#2: I paid $35 for this one, and it is "home-made"! If he sold 100 copies
of this one, he made his month's pay easily: "An Operator[']s Introduction
to Computer Numerical Control" written by Chris Mackay.
http://www.teachcnc.com No other publishing-data anywhere in the
Kwik-Kopy-printed spiral-binder volume. Copyright 1999. It does have good
basic definitions "from scratch", and some (poor) snapshots showing what is
what, if the reader has no clue what a lathe is, nor what Cartesian
coordinates are, etc. It describes the basics of "G-code" and has some
examples. But I only know what G-code "is", so I have no way to know if
what-all he includes on that is good, mediocre, or quite lacking.

(The only "CNC" work I have done is with home-brew machinery run by OLD CBM
(now defunct) "PET" computers, and now, by "PC's". I am finishing up two
"CNC" lathes run by discontinued Tandy 1500HD laptops, one of which goes to a
customer in OH. But these all use GWBASIC and the LPT-1 port to control the
machines. All home-brew. My currently-functioning and to-be-backed-up by
the new one lathe was built in '84, and still runs, original bearings still
OK, but "gettin' there!", after producing over 21,000 pipe-organ drawknobs,
which I do avocationally.)

Hope this is useful! Were you nearby, you could borrow these for weeks!

Regards! Jan Rowland, Troll


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