I program mostly by hand as I do a lot of parametric programming. I've only made 1 program entirley from CAM and I had no problems with the program...it was just very long. Now if I have a complex profile on a part, I'll do just the profile with CAM and throw it in my program.. I also do programs for high volume production and use a lot of variables,system variables in the programs for safety, pallet/tool identification, tool life and to make offseting more user friendly for the operators..
I have one program that can run 3 part families with 82 different part numbers. The only thing the operator needs to change are rings on the fixture and enter the part number in a variable. the program does the rest... CAM could not write such a program so they both have their place... |