Newbie- Help a Total Goose !!

[Harb]

Hahaha
Hi guys !
I'm totally new here and this is my first post on this fantastic forum....what a source of info.

Well I have Never had a single thing to do with CNC gear before, all my machining has been previously done with a manual Bridgeport in the past.
Now I have an opportunity to get my hands on a Interact 1 Mk 2 with a TNC155 controller.
My trouble is, I really would like to go down that path, but I have absolutely no Idea how to do anything at all.

To give a hypothetical example.....
If I was to say, want it to machine the word CNC in a piece of plate, what is the process to do that?

DO you somehow input the info from a CAD program ??

I'm sorry for the totally silly question, but in the past, I have been the control interface !!

Also, what do you think of the mill I have mentioned.... it appears to be in mint condition with very little use......

Thanks in advance, and I recon , I'll become a regular here ! hahah thanks guys, I just trying to find out if all this is just going to be to hard for my application which is one off milling on my offroad race car building stuff...

Harb

[kdhBOSS5VRAM]

That's a nice little mill. We have the identical one where I work. You can do a lot of stuff right on the control if you have the book for it to explain them. The Heidenhain control has a lot of cycles you can use like pocket mills, slots and circles. We never use it that way because we have an EZ Cam Cad/Cam system that is really easy to use. You just program a part on there and post it for that machine and transfer it in thru the RS232 port on the back of the control. Sounds like a nice setup for the projects you want to do with it.

Kevin

[Harb]

Thanks Kevin, I have always wanted to go down the CNC path with milling and just recently decided to take the plunge.
This mill just came up and I thought bugger it, I will do it !!
So what is this program you are using....Is it easy to learn ?
I guess just getting in and having a go will be the secret, but a few learning shortcuts never hurt either.......

[sdantonio]

Hey Harb,

In a nutshell the process will go something like this (I use Rhino3d, so I will refer things to that software).

1. Write out the letters CNC in rhino (or your favorite CAD, btw CNC's an acronym, not a word).
2. Open your chosen CAM software (in my case rhinocam).
3. Define your tools and tool paths.
4. Output your gcode (a process called posting) from your CAM.
5. Load your gcode into your chosen gcode interpreter (in my case Mach3).
6. Hit the start button and watch the magic happen.

Of course, each of these steps can be expanded into a chapter (or a book) all to them selves. Your in the right place if you want to learn though.

10bulls (search for his posts here) has a free CAD/CAM package called CAMBAM (or something like that). It's a good starting point, and the price is right. After you have some idea of what you want to do and how you want to proceed with this, then you can decide on whether you want to spend money of a commercial software package (Rhino, autocad, solidworks, bobcad, etc.) or stick with the free stuff. Keep in mind that the commercial stuff can get really expensive, and, in some cases, you actually do get what you pay for (sometimes).

"Mecsoft" and "Mach 3 support" have some free videos you can watch that will help explain the process (well, parts of the process anyway).

[kdhBOSS5VRAM]

Harb,
The system I've been using is EZ-Cam (www.ezcam.com). That's the stuff that was originally designed by Bridgeport way back. It's probably one of the oldest ones around. It's very easy to use. You can check it out on their website for demos. There are a lot of good systems around and a lot of them you can download demos on their websites. Check out the free ones too as suggested. Maybe they will work ok for what you need. If you need any help just let me know.

Kevin

[Harb]

Thanks guys, you blokes are champions !! I will have a look at what you have told me so far and see what other new questions come from that.........cheers

[gridley51]

You can download a programming manual here.
http://filebase.heidenhain.de/doku/o...58/N13F58.html