Re: Irrelevant G-code

I used to think that G-code was kind of clunky and cumbersome. It seemed like life would
be so much easier if I could just run my machine from a file directly from my CAD
program. Eventually, I did a ton of engraving in my home shop and made a pile of money
doing it. The artsy, fartsy stuff seemed like a piece of cake. Art to part no problem...
Later, I got a job at a place that has dozens and dozens of CNC lathes and mills. We have
many 4 axis lathes, lathes with robotic parts loaders, parts catchers, bar loaders, multiple
vises... you get the picture. Now, I realize that G-code is going to be around for a long
time. We have millions invested in these machines that use it.
Another thing that I have learned is this- the editing program is more important than the
CAD/graphical part of a CAM program, after you actually have geometry to work with(I can
here people out there saying "that's obvious..."). Tool calls, bar loader routines, turret
movement,moving to different fixture offsets, M codes to make parts catchers extend to
catch a part- that's the meat of the work and a good editing program is worth it's weight
in titanium chips. Good post processors should take care of a lot of this, but I'm used to
reading the code to check things out before sending it to the machine.



Dan