Training

[JayGrimm]

I am looking for opinions on getting training for myself on CNC swiss based on my personal situation. This training is for the purpose of getting a different job. I'll detail my credentials, such as they are:

I work on cam swiss now (Bechlers, Tornos & Petermanns) and have for almost 35 years, staying with the same company for over 30. I've set-up hundreds of jobs over the years, although I do not have that much experience machining the harder materials (like stainless). I also write all of the layouts for the jobs run here, as well as cutting all the cams (using an old Burri cam miller). I've handled the layout & cam making aspect of this job for over 25 years.

I want to make the move into CNC and the only way I can accomplish that is to seek employment elsewhere. I've visited sites online, such as Mastertask & Toolingu, and wondered if they, or any other site, have training that any of you consider adequate. I suppose I could hope to find a job at a shop that would be willing to train me, but I'd prefer to "get a leg up on it" myself. Also, because of my age (59), I considered that many shops might not be willing to go through the expense of training an 'older' worker. And so if I did have some basic knowledge and understanding of running CNC Swiss machines, that might at least get me in the door. I'd also love to get involved in the programming part, but that would be down the road, if at all.

Thanks for any opinions,
Jay

[ProProcess]

I would say that many shops would love to get their hands on someone that had experience making parts, but just needs some training on the CNC aspect of the job.

If you consider yourself open minded and willing to learn, put yourself out there.
Most places would be willing to give the person with the right attitude, some relative experience in the industry and a willingness to learn a shot at learning on the CNCs.
Are you able to divulge your location?

[MikeMc]

I totally agree with ProProcess, finding CNC guys is not that difficult. Finding guys who actually understand Swiss machining, well, that is quite another thing. In fact, I'm looking for a guy now.

Like you, I started on cam machines, Petermans, to be exact. I did the layouts, cut the cams by hand, set them up, and made the parts. Now I have a room full of Swiss CNC machines. I remember the first program I wrote on my own, it was a disaster!

[JayGrimm]

Are you able to divulge your location?

Thanks for your replies. I'm located in central Connecticut.

Are there any opinions on the various independent training programs/facilities available? And what training should I be considering based on my present experience level?

[MCImes]

Our technical college has a CNC Swiss advanced certificate. You should look into something like that in your area. Swiss shops in my area recruit heavily out of that program as it is one of the only ones in the area.

Ours is a 9 credit certificate. It was nice because they are half semester classes so you can finish in 9 months. If the classes line up right you could start in September and finish by March. Usually it requires a degree from the college but if you've been in industry that long im sure the head of the program would let you in.

Plus, if you already have the fundamentals of swiss down (like you obviously do) you can just concentrate on CNC code and programming so you'll get a lot more out of the classes.

[Mountain_Hiker]

Don't worry "ye old feller." Ha, most of them don't even want to hardly train the young bucks out there. It just depends on all the many circumstances that I'm sure you allready know anyways. The guy above, who mentioned a certificate program about Swiss CNC I think, that would seem neat. If it doesn't have the right instructor though, I can see where a person might be just as reasonably sit down and study the CNC programs and structures out for themselves. It's all knowing the codes, and how to put the Head 1 and Head 2 together time wise and all that stuff, and a few other things, ha. I think they are a cool machine, but difficult. It is my own opinion that once you would operate the machines for a while, then the next thing is programming and set-up. I can't be certain that there would even be an in between. If someone else is doing your programs and you have to set them up, then you'll need to know how to read and structure the programs anyways. It's hand in hand as far as I'm concerned. Hope something I've said will give you some things to consider.

[DCogswell]

CNC Swiss programming is fairly simple. Unless you get into complex contouring then, nearly all of the code is straight forward. I wrote my first program within 4 months working part time and before that I never touched a micrometer.

You sound like a seasoned veteran that knows his way around a swiss-type. If you know anyone that has the Tsugami Abile software disc, maybe you can get it loaded on your personal PC.

From there you could design parts that you've produced in the past and the software will generate the G-code and you could then "reverse engineer" the code.

If you want some pointers, feel free to send me an email:
dcogs1@msn.com

-Dave

[JayGrimm]

I enrolled in a CNC Swiss course with the online site of Mastertask, and am most of the way through the basic operating lessons. I'm already getting my feet wet with programing, and I'm confident I'll tackle that. Having done plenty of layouts for cam Swiss, it seems a matter of interpreting the programing code.

Mastertask seems to cover the basics pretty well, but it is a definite disadvantage not having an actual CNC at my fingertips while learning this. Then again, if I had been able to talk present management (where I am now) into taking the plunge into CNC, I'd have been well on my way long ago.

Dave, thanks for the offer. You may well hear from me sometime soon.

Jay

[DCogswell]

I enrolled in a CNC Swiss course with the online site of Mastertask, and am most of the way through the basic operating lessons. I'm already getting my feet wet with programing, and I'm confident I'll tackle that. Having done plenty of layouts for cam Swiss, it seems a matter of interpreting the programing code.

Mastertask seems to cover the basics pretty well, but it is a definite disadvantage not having an actual CNC at my fingertips while learning this. Then again, if I had been able to talk present management (where I am now) into taking the plunge into CNC, I'd have been well on my way long ago.

Dave, thanks for the offer. You may well hear from me sometime soon.

Jay

Hi Jay, good luck and I'm sure you'll soon enjoy the CNC swiss more than the cam driven machines!

[SirDenisNayland]

Hi Jay, good luck and I'm sure you'll soon enjoy the CNC swiss more than the cam driven machines!

Hah. I'm going backwards, learning a davenport right now lol!

It's been a lot of fun so far, making cams is pretty cool, i am a very math oriented guy and cam design brought a lot of my fav maths together. It's funny though talking to older guys, it just seems like they pick their points and then join the points together with a hand drawn curve. No thanks!

Also interesting is I spent a good deal of time studying polar coordinates and polar interpolation milling on my machines. To put it lightly I don't need g112 or 12.1 to do all that fun stuff.. just a live head. Coincidentally of you think of the endmill as the follower roller and the part profile as your cam.. well hey hey!

[CitizenBrian]

I had one of my guys do the free sample on the MasterTask web site and it helped him prove out his first part on a Citizen L20. I'm trying to get the boss to buy the full course, no luck yet.