Firstly, thanks for popping by, why this page?
Well it all came about years ago with another site that I ran but after a close family death, didn’t have time to maintain anymore (or to be honest? Any real interest either) however, over the last few years I still get calls from mates wanting to know “How do I do this or that” and thought that rather than explain it multiple times it would be easier just to put a site up again. Be aware, engineers swear a LOT so if you are easily offended, probably best you go visit Disney.com instead.
This isn’t going to turn you into a CNC programmer/setter if you aren’t already an engineer (please don’t try, these things can kill you) but it may help anybody who needs a quick reference for G-Code or setting instructions, tips and tricks that Fanuc don’t want you to know about.
(As an aside, I was lucky enough to train at Fanuc in JP many years ago while working for a well known manufacturer but hey ho)
Over an aweful lot of years I’ve worked with some of the best in their fields and learned a lot from them, Alan Stafford, Rob Ellis, Mike Richardson, Steve Thomas, Ronnie Barber, Rob Davies, Gary Wade and many others, I’ve also worked with a fair number of utter clowns that I wouldn’t personally trust with the TV remote. I’ve seen real artwork produced on these machines and absolute garbage I wouldn’t insult the bin man by throwing away.
What have I learned? Well Rule 1, take some goddam pride in what you do, if you wouldn’t pay for what you are making why the hell would anybody else and Rule 2 and more importantly, these things can END you, they are not toys..treat them with respect.
What to expect?
- What machines are available
- What different models can do
- What the buttons and dials do
- What all those codes mean
- The formatting and writing of programs
- An idea of what tooling is around and what to avoid
- some of the mistakes regularly made
With the best will in the world, this takes time, I have a full time job (unless my boss reads this and gets really pissed (Sorry Dave, only kidding) but I’ll do what I can to get as much info up here as possible in a reasonable timescale.
That’s about it for an intro so have fun and keep a watch on the Updates page to see what has been added at a glance along with my occasional rants.
If you want to email me tae@st0rmbringer.uk