Crashing tools while learning am I worst than most?

[M-man]

I did mess up a live tool holder in the lathe, cost of $3600 and two of the jaws were nocket out, safety glass got a crack and the main spindle had to be aligned..the tool that collided were the tool positioned next to the tool that were cutting. I knew that it were some risks with the interferance, I had the hand on the feed control and were ready to slow it down if I heard any noise from holder contacting the jaws, but in on mili sec, the chuck took the toolpost from x250 ro x0 and I almost did it in my pants. I am a trained cnc-operator with experience, so there not only new guys crasching stuff. But luckely for me I live in swe and there are no way to get fired or something like that.

[Geof]

Reading through all these posts I have not seen anyone suggest using graphics to find out where the machine is moving to. Maybe on most machines this is not possible but I do know on a Haas it is possible to step through a program in graphics and have the machine coordinates displayed. It is a simple matter to write these down for the moves that take the tool close to the chuck, or a vise or fixture. Then using handle jog with the spindle stationary move the machine carefully to these coordinates and make sure nothing is going to hit before getting there. It is a hell of a lot better to rotate the chuck by hand and find it is going to hit a tool holder than it is to ram the toolholder in to a rotating chuck no matter how slow you have the rapids. If a machine can do a graphic display with machine coordinates there is absolutely no excuse for crashing anything.

[neilw20]

After loading a program in Mach 3 you can display the minimum and maximum of each axis in one of the screens. Check that for unexpected silly numbers.
Zooming back on the graphics view (use ortho graphic display so silly Z moves are displayed) will show wild vectors. Combination of double clicks and the scroll mouse wheel will eventuall display the lot. Makes sure you have a scroll mouse.
Single stepping through the code, using the down arrow in the scroll bar, shows each move hilighted on the graphics. Look especially for long/unexpected ones.
G0 rapids are a different color to G1 programmed feed ones.
This is a quick and easy first check of a program. Also easily picks up crop-circles cause by selecting wrong circle direction for an arc.

[MASTERCAMMASTER]

Good thing you are not an electrician, you would be electrocuted by now, or the place would be burned down.
If you crash any machine you don't belong on it, without training.
Did I hear the word dry run in other posts?
Good luck
P.S. Don't leave the vise handle on machines with 2700 ipm rapids.
(not a crash but made a loud noise, only once)