CNC Rookie Help!

[aaronn]

I am taking a CNC Class in Denton,Tx at the ATC Center in Denton. I am a junior in high school and i am very interested in CNC. At the school we have Haas Machines 2-TM1, 2 Mini Mills, And 3 TL-1 and a faro arm. I am learning everyday more and more about CNC but need some help learning more.

If anyone out there would like to help me learn more about tooling for the mills, the feeds and speeds basics, the basics of CNC, or anything they would like to help me with or think would be help.

Any help i get i will greatly appreciate and put it to use.

Thanks

Aaron

[lkenney]

Aaron;

Welcome to this forum and an exciting, challenging career in machining. This is the right place to be in picking up tips to maximize your CNC and Haas knowledge.

I must say that you go to an exeptional high school that has such a strong machining program.

By using the search feature here on the forum you can learn a lot about basic questions that have aleady been asked without waiting for answers, but don't be afraid to ask directly also.

What CAD/CAM software package(s) are you learning? CNCZone has forums for most of the popular ones too.

So settle in and ask away, we welcome and need new blood in this profession.

LKenney

[aaronn]

We are using Mastercam X3.
Thanks for your response.
I have found that this forum has a lot to offer as you said.
We,(when I say we my class has four students in it).
We are trying to learn as much as we can, our teacher just likes to teach at a slower pace than we think we can handle. For the first semester all we did was spindle warm ups and exercise the machinery, and we have gotten on Mastercam X3 three times maybe.
I will keep you posted on questions.
We are just CNC Rookies looking for as much help as we can get.
Thanks Again for Your Help!

Aaron

[charger19690]

Aaron,

First, buy my Book, http://www.cncbasics.com, ok that was a bit much....lol

Now the marketing is out of the way....

If I were you, just read as much as you can on the net via this forum or there are other sites that have alot of good things on them.

Then do a search for MasterCam video tutorials. There are some YouTube things out there that are pretty good.

Signup with emastercam.com, that's a pretty good site if you specifically know what you want to find out about.

I never went to school for this stuff, I just worked in an assembly department and figured it out on the shop floor, just soak up everything everybody will give you and you will be fine.

Mike in MN
http://www.cncbasics.com
http://www.cncbasicsforum.com

[littlerob]

This is just my opinion and should be taken as such.

1. Do not depend on Cad/Cam to learn this trade (at first)

2. Learn to long hand the code, in my opinion this will this will give you an advantage, in the respect that you may not be able to use design software but you can still get a part off the machine. Mastercam is a very powerful tool I use it every day, but not on every part.

3. If your teacher needs to push harder ask it of him.

4. You said you have been on Mastercam 3 or 4 times? It is going to take an easy 4382 hours just to get comfortable with it, that is 6 months with no sleep, if you have the solids option add another three months to that.

With that being said I think it is awesome that there are still younger people interested. (I thought I was the youngest).

Robert